Hope this is an acceptable place for this question.
Any Newport OCS grads have their Hi Mom's at an awesome place? We're looking at Belle Mer, Atlantic beach club, Pronto and the O Club, but suggestions would be helpful. We're thinking more like a cocktail party with a small meal. Hoping for $30-50/person. Any help would be appreciated.
I would advise against this. Are there no priors in your class with families back home to feed? Are there no people with immediate families that might end up paying in excess of $200? These people are going to be faced with the decision to A) pay a huge amount of money so their family can be present or B) make their family do something else while they hang out with the same dudes they've been around for the past 3 months at a $50 premium since attendance is mandatory.
Our philosophy was that we were going to want to use the night to spend time with family, so we made the hi-moms cheap and short. Anyone who wanted to go out to eat with their families afterward, could, and we got a better meal out of it. You guys might not want to go that route, but $50/head is still too steep, especially for catered food which is ALWAYS shitty quality (If there exists good catering out there, I've never witnessed it). Cost $7/head, $12 after the CO made us up the amount of food (and it didn't go). Everyone was happy. My family and I went out to a nicer place for dinner afterward, and I saw a few people there. Others decided to spend their time elsewhere.
My power school class, consisting of ~100 people, went the opposite route for grad party...cost $30/head for burgers/hotdogs/$2 any draught beer + band at a more "classy" place. Yea, all the 22 year olds loved the reduced drink prices, as did I...but there were some people *gasp* who didn't drink, and others who had families where $90-150 was OTT. This caused arguments and crap, but ultimately those with families were able to back out of the party. I'm sure those people might have gone at $10-15/head, which probably could've been done.
The moral of the story:
Some people are going to say I'm a cheap bastard, but whenever you plan mandatory fun you have to consider that not everyone has a huge amount of money to blow on one night out with the crowd. Putting people into that situation just makes everything more stressful and pisses people off.
I can understand why you want to go all-out and make this night 'special,' but you still have to consider that not everyone will be in the same financial situation as you. An alternative solution is to make hi-mom's cheap, and you and whoever else wants to drop exhorbitant amounts of money can make reservations at another restaurant for later and have fun together.*
*Disclaimer: If your entire class happens to be single guys who were living at home prior to OCS and have little to no bills, by all means spend away.
