Joint Christening service with other families?

[JulyDreams]

Our vicar at our local church is offering us a christening but it will be a job service with other families so our child will be baptised at the same time. Has anyone else heard of this?

They also do some baptisms during the Mass but only one at a time for this, or twins or cousins. When I was having my DCs baptised I was offered the option of during or after Mass.

Very common especially when they are part of the Sunday service. Church's don't like having them every week as it becomes boring for the regular congregation. They often have a policy of no closer than 4-6 weeks so if someone else comes along and asks they get told either the same day as already booked or you need to wait and no guarantee that you'll be the only family.

I've been to both - just one child in a separate service and one child or several children as part of the normal Sunday service, so I think either way is normal.

My local CofE church has christenings with a few babies at a time. The vicar also refuses to christen babies whose parents don't regularly attend. My friend got very huffy when the vicar refused to christen her youngest because she never attended, apart from her own wedding and DCs christening. Her "but my family have lived here for generations" didn't help her argument.

I actually think it's nice to have a few babies christened together, as long as it doesn't get competitive with who has the most guests or who has the fanciest outfit.

Its utterly normal and mine were all done that way.

It's a special day for the church as it welcomes new members - doesn't matter how many (one of mine was the only one done that day, and it didn't matter a bit, just as much a welcome as when there are a few)

It's very common here but private ones are common too, usual depends on how busy the priest/church is. Having said that, there's nothing personal about the private ones, it's the same format.. So wouldn't have really seen a personalised one like you're talking about..

I've been to both. If it's a big church with an active congregation, you simply couldn't do a private ceremony for each baby as there would be too many of them... especially as the Saturdays at that church are likely to be taken up with weddings and there may well be more than one Sunday service. Also, if it's a big church with an active congregation, it's as much about welcoming the child to that family and therefore you want the whole congregation there rather than just family and friends.
The wording used is the ceremony is the same in either environment. Rules about photography might be different. You won't get to choose the hymns/music in the same way. You can still invite friends/family. You can still have a private do afterwards in a local pub/village hall/wherever

Thank you SO much everyone- has really helped.

My son had a christening with other families. It was held in a small room upstairs in the church as downstairs was under major renovations. There was a bit of a mix up as that Sunday was a family service rather than just a normal morning service so the room was rammed. Luckily ours was only a small group. We had postponed his Christening because my mum was very ill, but in fact she died so he was 3 by the time the day was organised.
My son got a bit bored and restless during the service which was quite lively and noisy due to all the children and babies there for the Christenings. He escaped our clutches and ended up climbing up into the pulpit and getting his clothes caught on a nail! The vicar had to rescue him. It really didn’t matter as the whole thing was very child friendly.
From what I can remember, the other two Christenings were also part of a morning service.

In reality it depends entirely on individual vicars or individual church policy.
I will have baptised nearly 100 children in my churches by the end of this year. I choose to do 2 a week in individual services on Sunday afternoons. That means I rarely get a Sunday afternoon to do other things like forest church or messy church.
The alternative would maybe to either have 8 once a month on a Sunday afternoon but I have small rural churches so people would be severely limited in the number of guests they could invite, or to have a couple every Sunday morning in the main service - again seating issues/and we would never have a 'normal'church service.

Definitely all baptised together at family service 60 years or more ago. And usually done that way ever since

My DS2 was baptised with five other babies 51 years ago.He was the only one who cried and made enough noise for the whole six!
My DS1 now 53, was the only baby at his baptism so it must have depended on how many babies were being baptised from one day to another.