What to do after a Christening?

[MrsTmilknosugar]

We are planning to have our LG christened soon, however we are the first of our generation in both families to have a child.
It's been a good 25years since i attended one which i have no memory of!
What do you do after?
It would be nice to be creative as we aren't able to spend much on "a do".
(Also its 50+ people so using our house is out)
Any ideas would be AMAZING. x

Most people have a tea party/light buffet.

You can usually hire a church or community hall for not too much money. Sandwiches/biscuits/cakes and tea is really all you need to supply.

See if the church hall is available? Serve tea & cake. Decorate the room with bunting & balloons!

We had Sunday lunch at local hotel but soup and sandwiches at a nice pub could work well.

We just had grandparents and siblings

50+ people is a massive christening! Most people’s weddings aren’t even that big. We invited six people and had tea and cakes in our house. You could do the same on a bigger scale if you hire the church hall?

Church hall would be ideal.
We had dd1's in the bowling club they supplied the sandwiches, and the drink was cheap😊 that was 26yrs ago.
With dd2 we were lucky,we could have it at home In the garden. We had afternoon tea. It was lovely. Can you get family to help out with food and decorations.

IMO put the baby for a nap before it gets cranky but last time we were roped into having a meal at the church (all organised and paid for by godparents, they’re really kind but I still would have preferred to put the kids straight to bed :p).

Traditionally you have tea and cake in the church hall. A Christening isn’t really a big do occasion.

Usually church/Village Hall with tea, coffee and light sandwiches & cakes, or a pub function room (generally preferable!) afterwards.

It’s usual to have far fewer than 50 at a Baptism and to do a late lunch at home. Since they’re already invited then an afternoon tea type event with a cake in the church hall would be entirely appropriate. They’re usually quite low key affairs.

We did cake, sandwiches etc in the church hall. We had about 10 guests each time plus whoever wanted to come who went to the church anyway.

We asked grandparents, GGM, aunts and uncles (2) and godparents and their partners, to the christenings. Afterwards they came back to our house for fruitcake, a glass of champagne and then cups of tea or coffee. That was that.

Yes, its an annoyingly large family that our parents insist are invited to everything mothers have 6 and 4 siblings each and fathers both have 2 siblings all with at least one partner each before you even get to our cousins and their partners 🙄

Would somewhere like a rugby/football club be ok do you think?
We used the church hall for our shower type do and only just fit everyone in as they only have huge 12ppl tables, i would like to have a "staff" type person there to open food or something as well as my Mother and Mother-in-law insisted on serving everyone at the shower even though we did a buffet and set it all up ourselves and we had to listen to how wonderful they had been helping out and how we were so unprepared for weeks after. We also found out that MIL had extra food & cutlery in her car we specifically told her not to get because she didn't think we had planned enough (which we had) so having someone working a bar that i could tell them was in charge and to leave alone would be a bonus....

I do like the sound of just godparents and grandparents and a meal after but i don't know if i have the energy to contain them 😂😂

Honestly grandparents and YOUR brothers and sisters and dh siblings plusgodparents.

So say ten to twelve people. It is plenty. You can relax and have a nice meal. 50 that you have to budget for sandwiches for run around and the whole lot. I would just put my foot down

I'll do my best lol! 🤞🏼

Yes, you don't normally invite your cousins to a christening. I found the christening got smaller with each dc we had so we had siblings, grandparents and great grandparents for dc1 and just 2 of the grandparents and 1 sibling for dc5.

There were 12 at ours plus me and DH.

Oh that would stress me out so much. My MIL was a bit like yours. Kept 'offering' to 'help' because we couldn't cope. Bringing food that we told her not to. Sounds helpful but it's not when it is undermining and we actually had the situation perfectly under control. Also I've emigrated to live in my husband's country and it's mostly his family at events. I wanted us to combine and come up with our own traditions not just have his mum decide and do everything her way.

I would have a think about what you and your husband really want to do. I can't imagine all the extended family members will care, if you haven't been to any of their christenings it can't be that big a tradition. If you do go for 50 guests then write on the invitation 'there will be a self-service buffet' or something very clear to your dm and Mil. If you can get in early to set up before they arrive that would be great as well. I don't know what your relationship is like, if you can have a word beforehand or steer them away if they start serving people.

Thankyou everyone, we both want the smallest we can. We haven't told anyone we are starting to organise it yet so hopefully we can set it all in stone before any suggestions come our way!! 😂🙈🤞🏼

This is a very large group for a Christening, but I think church hall buffet it the best option. You know it's big enough and how everything works.

Let DMum and DMIL deal with the buffet - they want to and it's one less thing for you to do. Or ask if someone from the congregation can assist.

We had people traveling a few hours to get to us so treated it like a family reunion and all went for a nice pub lunch. Everyone paid for themselves, and we put wine on the table and had cake for pud. it was a lovely lovely day. We had similar numbers to you

Another large family here and we took over the first floor of a restaurant. Got a lovely cake from M&S.

We’re having DDs christening in a few weeks. About 30 people in total and my inlaws have booked a private room in a hotel and we are having Sunday lunch.

For my DS 2 years ago we had a buffet at my parents house, but they’ve since moved to a much smaller house and my inlaws wanted to “host” this time

I can sympathise with your issues through personal experience.

To get round the MIL problem the best way would be to hold it somewhere that caters for you. That way you and your DH are in complete control of what’s served and your MIL won’t be able to add anything.

It is a more expensive option though.

We had a similar number to you and it held it in a local hotel function suite. The hotel provided a lunch buffet, tea, coffee and juice. We got a local cake maker to do a cake.

There was plenty of space for everyone to sit and chat.