Bar tab at christening

[shockedandsurprised]

Dh and I can't agree so I'm after some opinions. We're planning a christening for ds and have booked a function room in a local pub for a buffet afterwards. We're paying for the buffet and will also be doing a champagne toast. Dh thinks guests can then buy their own drinks at the bar. I think we should have a tab and pay for everyone's drinks.

I was always under the impression that at a christening the parents paid for all the guests, dh thinks paying for food and a glass of champagne is enough. Christening is at midday so we're talking early afternoon for the meal so people won't be going crazy, and lots of people will be driving as none of our family and friends live particularly close so I'm not expecting it to be a huge amount of money.

What do other people think/what have been your experiences?

@yoghurtmaker

Post-christening refreshments in a pub function room are fine and are hardly new. Then again I grew up in a mining village where it was either the pub or the miner's welfare!

I have never been to a christening with a free toast or even free bar.

As a friend attending these things, they're so boring I'd love a free bar to perk things up, but wouldn't expect one remotely!

As if costs for parents with young children weren’t enough!

A glass of fizz as a toast yes, paying everyone’s bar bill no.

I hate the snobbery in some corners of MN around alcohol at christenings. A celebratory glass of Prosecco or two does not turn into into something akin to a bar crawl in Agia Napa.

make sure there's tap water perhaps

Quick OP - cancel that venue you were going to book with no running water!

Surprised by the near-universal assumption that open bar = piss-up.

The last christening I went to had an open hotel bar before a sit-down lunch with wine. It was a Presbyterian affair full of elderly relations and practically no-one had a drink at all!

I’m in Ireland and I’m my family/circle christenings are very much an excuse for a piss up (I hate it tbh)

However, champagne?? At a christening? Never heard of that. No free bar either. But champagne??

Are you the sort of person who had 4 engagement parties, 11 hen nights and umpteen baby showers?

Hopoindown31 Wonder if it’s regional then? I’m used to church then back to the parents or grandparents, whichever house can accommodate the guests. It would be tea for the guests, maybe soft drinks depending on the season, and food, usually a buffet. (London/Wiltshire background).

I'd never expect a free bar at a Christening. Free tea/coffee and juice for kids would be a nice touch but not necessary really.
As pp said it's a Christening not a booze up. I genuinely don't understand why Christenings have apparently become such huge events recently, usually to parents who never attend Church (not saying that applies to you OP).

The last Christening we went to, the parents didn’t go to church but the mother’s parents did, so the church were fine about it.

We hired a private function room for after the christening. We provided a glass of champagne for each guest to toast the baby’s health and bought a few bottles of wine so that people could have a glass with their meal if they wanted. Then tea and cake. If people wanted other than wine, they could go to the bar.

Would that work as a compromise?

Why yoghurtmaker?

I genuinely don't understand why Christenings have apparently become such huge events recently, usually to parents who never attend Church (not saying that applies to you OP).

Like everything else (weddings, first birthdays, etc) there is money to be made and so local eateries, make up artists, party maker businesses plug their services all over social media and people see it and think “ooh! So people have that for christenings now!” It plants the seed and before you know it everyone is keeping up with the Joneses because all their friends are doing the big show so they feel they have to as well. Not everyone of course. Some people are perfectly secure in themselves not to need to put on a show everytime they fart.

@IfIWasABirdIdFlyIn2ACeilingFan that's pretty harsh. You know nothing about me. If you read my updates you'll see this isn't a huge show. It's a simple traditional christening (@yoghurtmaker I am a church goer so keep your disgust in check please) followed by a buffet. Fairly standard, at least amongst my church-going family.

Also for those who seem to have assumed we're having hundreds of people, it is family and a few close friends. We both have big families, not much I can do about that

LoniceraJaponica Why What?

Do you mean why were the church fine about it? Because the grandparents go to that church every week and have done for many years. The daughter, baby’s mother, used to go as a child with them but stopped going to church at all when she went to uni. But the clergy, quite strict about weddings and Christenings being for congregation members (beautiful picture postcard village church that would be overrun with non believer instagram weddings just for show if they weren’t!) allowed it as the grandparents were churchgoers.

Interestingly the mother of the child had to write to the bishop for permission to get married in that church a few years ago because they initially said no as she had stoped attending.

People pay for their own drinks. I wouldn’t supply a champagne toast, a cup of tea or coffee is plenty.

@yoghurtmaker I am a church goer so keep your disgust in check please

What?!

Bar for a christening? Why?confused

Why not?

This sneering about how christenings aren't like this or that and shock horror at alcohol....its both normal and traditional in some communities/cultures to do this and you're being pretty offensive.

Never EVER host an event with a free bar.

My cousin’s wedding had one and they accrued 9k bar tab because people had just taken the piss ordering expensive bottles of wine and drinking a couple of glasses

that's pretty harsh. You know nothing about me. If you read my updates you'll see this isn't a huge show

I didn’t mention you at all!!

I think the alcohol at christenings thing seems to depend on the denomination. I am catholic, we definitely have alcohol at all the christening I have been to.

We have always done buffet, cake and tea and coffee includes, bar drinks people pay for. I have been to lots of christenings and never had a free bar.

Free bar is a thing of the past. At most occasions (weddings, christening) people pay their own way at the bar.

The last 3 Christenings we have been too have been a buffet lunch, including Tea & Coffee with Juice for the children and then a cash bar if anyone wanted anything else.

I wouldn't have expected anything else.

Food, tea/coffee and bubbly for a toast is all you’d expect at a christening. Anything else guests pay for, totally normal.

Well if you are in a village, and the pub is dead opposite the church, then having the gathering in a bar is entirely normal.

And I bet it's also the most convenient option for OP who has guests coming from quite a distance, for whom she wants a reasonable lunch.

OP: I suggest you get the first round in, unless the numbers make that prohibitively expensive.

(I've been loads of services in different which have drinks after, everything from sherry in the church hall through to kir royale in the adjacent gardens.