Christening

[NeedAHoliday123]

Please forgive me for being naive but it's been a long time since I've been to a christening!

I am looking to get my little boy christened in a few months time, and because of COVID restrictions they are not happening during a church service, but instead separately.

Has anyone been to one like this In the past few months? And can describe what happens/how long it takes etc?

Do we need to pick hymns/readings etc? Or is there a set programme with certain ones included etc?

In my church it would tend to last about 25 to 30 minutes and I would imagine that is fairly standard. I am in the church in wales so our service is probably a lite different to c of e, but tends to be a bit of info as to why we baptise, ask parents and God parents if they want to baptise the child and the child's name, reading from bible and short talk, ask the parents and godparents if they believe in God, make the sign of the cross on the child and annoint them with oil. Bless the water in the font, baptise the child, give them a candle. Say some prayers and the Lords prayer.

We would be unlikely to have hymns (at the moment we aren't singing at all due to covid, but pre-covid I wouldn't tend to unless the family specifically asked to)

Readings it depends on the church. I tend to use the set readings for the day, some vicars have set ones for baptisms, again if you had something you really wanted I would accommodate that, but I can't speak for all vicars.

Depends on your local church, and relationship with the vicar. We had DC2 Christened recently and planned the service with the vicar who is a good friend and knows us well which made it easier. I know he works like this anyway though really tailoring the service to the people involved. We chose the readings and prayers, the vicar discussed two ways of approaching the 'talk' and we chose music for the beginning and end. We had to wear masks when moving about but not when seated and no singing. The promises, signing the cross etc was the same as pre covid but the vicar couldn't hold the baby for the baptism with water so I had to hold DC2 over the font.

Stark contrast to DC1s Christening which was very formulaic, we had no say in the hymns (really disliked one of them) or readings and felt very impersonal, just C of E formality. It's our local Church which we attend regularly but the vicars style isn't quite mine! DC1s was about 40 minutes, DC2s was an hour.

Thank you both for your responses - very helpful and much appreciated