Baptism party - size?

skio

If you had your baby baptized already or are planning it for sometime soon, how many people did you invite?

DD's will be in about a month and we're trying to get the invites together. It's stressing me out. With family alone, we have 35 people. Add friends, and the invite list is up to 60. We're inviting family only to the church, since it's a small church and the baptism will be done during mass. But we're having a celebration lunch at our house afterward and I feel like it's getting out of control. MIL is asking if a couple of her friends are invited and I really want to say no, but these are people who DH has known since he was little.

A little more info that's affecting this decision - we have a small house with one bathroom. We had a BBQ with 17 people a few weeks ago and the toilet clogged and everyone had to go home. It was a huge PITA and it was embarrassing. We're thinking of renting a portopotty for this party already.

WWYD? Invite the extra 5 people? Limit it to family and OUR friends only, excluding friends of the family? I appreciate any insight. I feel like I might lose my mind over this silliness!

Mrs.Sare_K

We had Jillian baptized at 10 weeks, and we had 21 close family members + god-parents come to a lunch after the baptism.  Its not that we didn't want to invite friends, but we had our lunch at a restaurant, so due to budget, we couldn't afford much more... 

Its an important celebration for your family, invite the people that are going to appreciate the importance of the day...  Good luck, its hard to put a limit on guests!

amethyst1220

We had 16 people. When I told MIL the date, she went ahead and told her sisters the date, but then we explained to her we were just doing immediate family only. It was awkward but oh well. Would have loved to invite more people but our house is small.

nyrngrs1

I understand where you're coming from. We invited about 80 adults and 20 kids. It ended up being about 50 adults and 15 kids come after all of the RSVP's came in. We rented a hall and got 6 foot wedges and then my family pitched in and helped make some extra hot food to go with it to keep the cost down. Good luck!

Kered6799

With just our immediate family and our best friends we are at 22 adults 5 kids and that includes us. Its this Sunday and we are having a Italian lunch afterwards at the church.

Its hard to have a lot of people over and I don't blame you for not wanting extra people with what happened last time. If it were me I'd limit it, less stress for you.

JanaVT9183

We didn't formally invite people, just told some people that it's happening this Sunday and they're more than welcome to come.  The only people coming though are my parents, my grandfather, my brother and sister-in-law plus their three kids, one of my mom's first cousins who we are close to, and my husband's parents.  Our church is near my parents' house, and they have a swimming pool, so afterward, everyone is just going there, and we're going to have crabs and shrimp to eat.  I'm a little disappointed because my in-laws who live about an hour and 45 minutes away are just staying with us Saturday night because they'll be on their way home from visiting family down south.  That means that Luke's great grandmother has no way to get to the baptism, and I know she would like to be there.  Usually my in-laws would just bring her with them when they visit.  I wish one of my husband's aunts or his uncle could bring her.  I'm not even sure if my mother-in-law reminded them it was happening after I told them two weeks ago.