Christening invitations

When you’re arranging your baby’s Christening, one of the most important tasks you need to do is to write and send the christening invitations.

First, of course, before you send the christening invitations, you need to know all the main arrangements; the time, date and place of the christening ceremony, the location of the party to be held after the christening and some indication to your guests about other important things they may need to know – such as dress code, any gift information, whether you want them to bring food or drink and so on.

Next, you need to work out your christening invitation list. How big will the celebration be? At the least, you’ll want to invite parents, godparents and perhaps grandparents; some families prefer a small and intimate gathering of a dozen people or less. Or you may prefer a large celebration of family and friends; if that’s the case, make sure you have a budget and venue that will allow you to do this with minimum stress.

Before finalising your christening invitations, don’t forget to check the numbers that you are inviting with the church. Sometimes christenings are held in a chapel or the font may be in a smaller part of the church, or the christening ceremony may be part of a larger group ceremony, so check that all of your proposed guests can be fitted in for the ceremony.

Some families have expectations that a baby’s christening will be a large, formal event with a cast of hundreds. If that’s the case, you probably knew this beforehand and you’ll just have to get on with it – but don’t forget, there are bound to be other family members who have gone through the same arrangements, and you can save a lot of time and research by calling them to get advice and information, including the names and addresses for critical family members who need to be invited to the occasion.

Christening Announcement

If you didn’t get the chance to send out birth announcements, the christening invitations might be the first formal announcement that your family has issued about the name of their new baby. If that’s the case, perhaps you can add baby’s birth date on the invitation for those who may not have heard all the details!

Christening invitation designs

There are many beautiful christening invitation designs available commercially, either through an online design and printing agency, or purchased over the counter at a stationery store or newsagent.
When choosing your christening invitations, you need to consider your budget, and perhaps reflect a decorative theme or colour scheme that you will use at the celebration which you can then carry through to the christening invitations.

Do you want to include a photo of your new baby on the invitation? This can be a lovely personal touch, but might detract from the appearance of the invitation and can also add significantly to the cost.

Electronic christening invitations

If you communicate online with your whole family and that’s the main way that you contact all the people you might invite to your baby’s christening, then there is no reason that you can’t send an e-invite to your baby’s christening.

If you are considering this, do have a think about having one part of the invitation (the bit with the critical details of when and where) in a printable format (eg a PDF) so that a hard copy can be given to anyone who may like to keep a physical copy of the invitation.

This article was written by Fran Molloy, www.ultraverse.com.au, journalist and mum of four