I flew to Kansas on Thursday to help my parents with the annual Valentine’s Banquet they help host for their church and community. This is an annual tradition they started years ago and it’s a much-anticipated event every year. I thought you would enjoy seeing a recap of the event and it might inspire you with ideas for events you might help host or give you ideas if you’d like to do something similar in your community!
Last year, I got to help with it and enjoyed it so much that I asked if I could come back again this year to help! The preparation for it starts weeks in advance with planning the theme and the decor and the menu plan. It takes a lot of hands and volunteer hours to pull off and the end results were incredible!
Friday morning, we went to the church to help with the cooking prep and decor set-up. I helped make the dessert (cheesecake in chocolate bowls) — I made 6 batches (I think?) of the cheesecake mixture, washed over 100 goblet glasses, helped plan the strategy for all the serving, and helped chop and peel food and clean up. It was so fun to watch it all come to life and how many hands truly made light work!
My sister, Olivia, made dairy-free, gluten-free desserts for those with sensitivities/allergies. The dinner menu was fully gluten-free except the rolls and she also made gluten-free rolls for those who were GF.
We had 56 couples who RSVP’d for the event + all the servers and extra helpers, so all totaled it was around 140 people who would be eating dinner, which meant there was lots and lots of food to make!
While some of us were working on food, there was a whole other team of people working on transforming the worship center into a banquet hall!
During the dinner, each table was given discussion questions to talk about together (see below). Then, after the dinner, my dad led some fun couple games (with prizes!), then gave an inspiring talk on marriage, and then the couples all went off individually to discuss some questions specifically to help strengthen their marriage and spend time praying together.
I got the incredible privilege of getting to oversee the 18 servers and all the food going out to everyone’s table. I just have to say, I came away so encouraged by watching the next generation of young people. So many of the servers were young men and I was blown away by their willingness to volunteer hours of their time to work so hard, have such great attitudes, take such initiative, and not stop until all the dishes were done and everything was cleaned up.
At the beginning, when every couple arrived, they had their photo taken by Andrew Cook. Then, during the banquet, he had them all printed and put them into frames so that everyone got to take one home at the end as a special memento of the evening.
Here’s my parents’ photo. It was so special to get to help them out and work together with them on this event!
Some of the photos in this post were taken by Andrew Cook Photography and used with permission.
I am interested in knowing if this is something the church actually pays for or do they find different ways to pay for it. We have a smaller church than your parents, but I would like for us to do something like this for our couples.
Thank you for the behind the scenes look at this event! Serving in this way is a blessing to the couples and to all of the volunteers it seems. I especially like the pictures. I’ve been to a few couples events that did something similar and it provided some of the best pictures with my husband we’ve had since our wedding.
Such a fun post! Easy to see where you got some of your big dreams/planning skills from. We hosted a Valentine’s event for kids in our neighborhood this past weekend. It was neat to be creative with crafts & simple snacks.
Oh! I love that you hosted an event for the kids in your neighborhood!
This is such a nice event! I particularly like the idea of having an event for couples at all stages of marriage – it can be so encouraging to younger couple to fellowship with those in longer-term marriages. They tend to have a perspective that is helpful to those just starting out or in the exhausting years with young kids. And it can also be refreshing for more seasoned couples to spend time with the young ones. And everyone gets fed, literally and spiritually:)
Yes!! There was an engaged couple, lots of couples who had only been married a year to five years and then lots of couples who been married for 10-40+ years!
My old church did something like this, but they made it for all adults so as not to omit those who had lost a spouse or were single. Those not married are often left out of church events.
My parents’ church and my parents host a lot of things specifically for those who are single every year (they do an amazing job of integrating those who aren’t married into their activities/events and also providing a lot of events specifically for singles). This is the one event they do every year specifically geared for married couples so it was special to see all of the singles willingly wanting to volunteer to bless the married couples!
Really nice event. It’s amazing how young people help for the community! One thing I was wondering: why was it held one week before Valentine’s Day why not that day or at that weekend?
It was held the week before Valentine’s Day because that’s what ended up working best for a bunch of people’s schedules.
So sweet that you got to help them. I’m guessing your Dad is a pastor? What church in KC? I live in St Joseph MO and would love to meet you sometime. The banquet looks beautiful and very well organized. I can definitely see you took part in that. You and your family are an inspiration to me. 🥰
They are in Wichita. My dad isn’t a pastor (he works full-time as the executive vice president of a real estate development company — where he’s worked all my life!) but he’s also an elder at their church and part of the preaching rotational team.
What a neat evening! How did you make the chocolate bowl itself?
I didn’t make them, but you blow up a balloon and dip it in chocolate and let it harden and then pop the balloon. See here: https://www.inthekitchenwithmatt.com/chocolate-balloon-bowls
I would love to go to such an amazing event celebrating marriage! How lovely, the food looked delicious and so classy!!!! Your parents are adorable and clearly have been a wonderful example for you and Jesse (as you are modeling for your children) Thanks for sharing!
It was such a special event!