How Much To Save For Christening?

chirpychick

We want to get our baby Christened fairly early on.
He is due November 30th and think it best to get Christmas, New Year and my Birthday out the way (Feb) also taking into consideration a few months to save and the weather we are hoping to do it at the beginning of March.

My dear friend is making his christening gown and bonnet.

We are thinking that we will invite everyone back to our house for Tea & Cake. We don't drink so wont be supplying it for everyone else and if we invite them back for tea and cake we wont be expected to put on a buffet or anything as we don't have much money at all. Will supply squash for the 5 children. Hopefully only having tea and cake wont encourage people to stay for more than a couple of hours.

Also we have 3 dogs and a baby gate to the kitchen. We have a small house and nowhere else to put them so I am thinking I will shut them in the kitchen so people don't get dirty but it's all open plan so they will see them etc, we know a couple of people don't like dogs so is it acceptable to say on the invites something diplomatic about the dogs being there and not to feel obliged to come to our house afterwards?

How much would you expect to pay for the above?
I estimate about 20 people

Thank you in advance.
(hope I dont sound too tight!!!)

Moomum

We did the same, we had christening at three and then everyone ( about 20) back for afternoon tea. My MIL made cake and I ordered sandwich platter x2 and afternoon tea type cake platter x 2 from M&S and had two bottles champagne for little toast, then just had tea, coffee and squash. Came in about £60 for food but think you could do it for less if you made sandwiches and scones yourself. Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy

chirpychick

I forgot to say a friend of mine is a professional cake maker and already offered to make the main Christening cake, the Godmother and myself will make a couple of other variations (my family are big cakey people!!) and I will make a few sandwiches myself. I don't really want to buy anything ready prepared. My hubby is also good at making the odd sarnie

narabanekeater

if it helps when we had DD Christened we gave £100 donantion to the church. This is what we could afford and they claimed gift aid on it.

dottygirl

Hi depending on the church you may be able to have the tea and cake in one of the rooms if you dont have the room at home to host people. x

susancs

narabanekeater wrote: »

if it helps when we had DD Christened we gave £100 donantion to the church. This is what we could afford and they claimed gift aid on it.

We did similar and gave the Priest a thank you card with a £100 in it.

If you are doing a lot of the sandwiches and cakes yourself then probably £50-£60 will cover the food and tea/coffee then you will have extra items to consider such as decorations, table cloth, napkins, cups saucers,plates for 20 people, platters for sandwiches, large teapot and cake stands. You will also have the invitations to purchase (ebay do lovely personalised ones) and postage for these.

chirpychick

dottygirl wrote: »

Hi depending on the church you may be able to have the tea and cake in one of the rooms if you dont have the room at home to host people. x

Unfortunately they don't in any of the local churches which is why we will need to do it at home.
I have checked out all of the appropriate ones within the local community.

jumpingjackd

DD did hers at home and had a finger buffet and cake with a few bottles of bubbly, tea and coffee and soft drinks, was a nice little party, didnt cost too much

Dunroamin

Why not put the dogs in kennels for the day?

hazyjo

Do you have a garden the dogs could use for a couple of hours? If there's only 20 people, I presume they know you well and know that you have dogs. If they plan on coming back to yours afterwards, I'd say it's up to them to ask if the dogs are gonna be there. I wouldn't be adding it to the invites that the dogs will be in their own home.

I would add on the invites that it's back to yours for 'tea/coffee and cake' in case people are expecting a buffet (for example), or alcohol.

(Don't forget we've had snow in March before!)

Jx

newcook

I don’t know about you and your friends/family but when any of my friends have a party at home we all ask if there is something we can bring such as a plate of sandwiches, sausage rolls etc.

The £5 party platters from Iceland are great aswell!