Huxley’s DIY Christening Invitations & Christening Day

This past November we finally got round to getting our son Christened*! With moving house and seven weddings abroad this summer I kept getting distracted and procrastinating, but we finally did it.

As we only booked the date a few weeks in advance, and as not many of our friends are religious, we decided to invite only immediate family members, godparents and a handful of close friends.

To make the invitations I got out my paint kit (just a children’s watercolour palette, nothing fancy), brought up an image of the church on Google, and did a rough of it in pencil and then paint. 

When I got the invitation scanned and printed I realised the lettering would be too small for some guests to read, so I cut and folded little dove birds to pop inside each envelope, with the writing on the wings.

*Here in England there’s quite an old-fashioned system whereby if you don’t get your children baptised or christened, it’s harder to get them into some of the better state schools. Two of the best state schools (that means government paid, to you American readers!) in our area are Church Of England schools, and the only way our child could realistically get a place at either of those is if he is both Christened and a regular visitor at the affiliated church. The issue with not doing so is that all the other state schools in the region are outside of our catchment area, which means by default we would only really have the option of paying for private school – even from the young age of 4!

Anyway, the Christening day came and it was a perfect, crisp autumn day.

We also borrowed my boyfriend’s Christening gown which he had worn when he was the same age, and it had also been worn by his ancestors. IT had been made for his family in 1919, making it the 100th anniversary!

After a lovely and relaxed service (the only hymn was Lord Of The Dance), we had a reception at The Phene in Chelsea. 

The amazing thing about The Phene as a venue is that you can use the minimum spend towards bottles of booze to take home with you! So there’s never any wastage, and there’s also no worry about over spending as you can use what’s left over for your next party.

Their private room also has a fireplace, making it the perfect spot for an autumn or winter do.