Family reunions are a much-loved Aussie tradition, here’s how to make organising them easier. 

Bringing together family members from around the country, and in some cases around the world, can be an immense but rewarding task.

We’ve removed a bit of the organisational grunt work for you by identifying some of the best tools available online to help make your next family reunion run as smoothly as possible. 

Planning 

In the case of the family reunion, clear information is key. The more detailed the information you provide to all attendees, the less confusion.

Doing things online can mean information can be updated as it comes, and attendees notified as such.

The Facebook group or event is an excellent place to start for your family reunion.

It can be used for end-to-end planning for smaller groups or straightforward events, or even simply to identify wider family members and put in a save the date with larger groups or more complex events.

Upon joining the group or event, attendees will automatically receive any updates to the group, unless they opt out of this feature.

By leaving your group or event open for your selected invitees to invite others, you can also ensure that you get family members that you’re not ‘Facebook friends’ with involved.

If you’re keen to take it a step further and create an event hub with more details and access for those without Facebook, a personalised website is a great choice.

Free services like wix.com or weebly.com are an easy way to create a beautiful event base.

These services also have paid options to upgrade your site with added extras, like a personalised domain name.

Another free communication tool, that also happens to be pretty slick, is Mailchimp.

Using your own list of emails, or one of their shareable sign up forms, you can distribute newsletters to attendees using their templates.

Post event 

When all is said and done, the previous tools can provide a great way to share wrap-ups of the event.

If you want to share a large quantity of images from the event a service like Dropbox or Flickr can be a good way to get things going by creating a shared album that many people can add to.

Dropbox is compatible with a large amount of devices, and its basic website design is a great choice for first timers as there aren’t too many bells and whistles to complicate your experience.

You can start off on a free plan which gives you up to 2GB of storage space, otherwise their pro account gives 1TB of space for $13.99 a month.

Otherwise Flickr’s free account comes with 1TB (that’s 1,000 GB) of storage for your images and family videos.

Regardless of which tools you use to plan your reunion, be sure to take the time to enjoy this special occasion.

Sharing the load with other family members and keeping technology on your side will set you up for a fun and fulfilling family reunion.  

Find out how Australian homes will change as we become more connected.