For those of you baptizing your LO

emd2887 · November 2011

A couple of questions:

Are you planning on inviting any non-family members to the baptism, i.e. close friends? If so, would you invite people of other denominations if they are close to you?

Are you planning on having a party/get-together afterwards?

Is it customary to give a gift to the godparents? If so, what would you give?

DH brought it up tonight and we realized we had absolutely no idea what people usually do. Thanks for any input!

chankins14 · November 2011

We baptized DS (not sure what's gonna happen with this LO). We invited family & close friends, not co-workers or casual friends but CLOSE friends. I didn't even think about the faith of the people we invited & no one didn't attend because of their difference in faith.

We had a get together in our home after the baptism with heavy appitizers & desserts.

We did not give gifts to the godparents.

mlhw NH · November 2011

Are you planning on inviting any non-family members to the baptism, i.e. close friends? We are only inviting Family

Are you planning on having a party/get-together afterwards?Yes we are having a get together afterwards. We will try to keep it pretty low key though.

Is it customary to give a gift to the godparents? I hadn't thought of this. I haven't heard that it is customary, but these days it seems that you give gifts for everything! I thought about just doing some type of card with a special message in it.

MrsRucinski85 · November 2011

We will be baptizing our LO.
We are Catholic and in our religion we do have godparents for the LO. It will most likely be my SIL and BIL (my side of the family is not Catholic). With that being said we will be inviting family from both sides no matter the religion (although we dont plan on most being there but not because the religion factor but because we live many many miles and hours away from all our family).Most of our friends are the same religion as us but we do have a few that are not, and yes we will still have the invite open for them.
Gifts to the godparents: I am not sure if it is customary to give gifts but we in a sense will be... we will be paying for them to fly down them and more than likely take them out to eat or show them a good time here; they've never been to TX before.
And as far as a party... who knows. Maybe just a bbq at our place; probably wont do anything big and super fancy.

alexvause · November 2011

Most likely will just invite family and godparents, maybe go out to brunch afterwards. As far as a gift, maybe a small momento type of gift

Stella2008 · November 2011

We are Catholic, and for DD we baptized her when she was 2 1/2 months old. We invited around 45 people (family, close friends and neighbors) and most came. We did have a catered lunch at our house afterward. We had quite a few family members travel from out of town to attend as well. It was nice because it was August and people could be inside and outside.

With this baby, we will probably do the same thing. However, since we will have to do the whole thing indoors since we live in the midwest, we might have a bit more trouble with the crowd.

With the godparents, we did not give gifts, but did write each of them a long card thanking them for playing such an important role in DD's life.

beka0404 · November 2011

We're planning on having only our parents and siblings (and their spouses/children) at the baptism (our daughter's godparents will be my BIL and his wife). In my family, baptisms are more of a private event. In my husband's family, it's tradition to invite extended family (his aunts, uncles, cousins). We're opting for a smaller group because my extended family is large and I don't want to have to host 30-40 people at my house for brunch with a newborn.

I don't consider denomination to be a factor in inviting someone. Do you mean different faiths, like Judaism, instead of denomination?

We'll probably go out to brunch afterwards or host a lunch at our home.

I haven't heard of giving a gift to the godparents and I've never been given a gift as a godparent. I guess if we give a gift it will probably be something small but meaningful? Not sure.

emd2887 · November 2011

beka0404:
We're planning on having only our parents and siblings (and their spouses/children) at the baptism (our daughter's godparents will be my BIL and his wife). In my family, baptisms are more of a private event. In my husband's family, it's tradition to invite extended family (his aunts, uncles, cousins). We're opting for a smaller group because my extended family is large and I don't want to have to host 30-40 people at my house for brunch with a newborn.
I don't consider denomination to be a factor in inviting someone. Do you mean different faiths, like Judaism, instead of denomination?
We'll probably go out to brunch afterwards or host a lunch at our home.
I haven't heard of giving a gift to the godparents and I've never been given a gift as a godparent. I guess if we give a gift it will probably be something small but meaningful? Not sure.

To the bolded- I guess I meant both. I didn't know if people of different denominations/faiths would find it weird or uncomfortable to be invited. I know I wouldn't care but I didn't know if most people would feel awkward about it.

Neither one of us has been to a baptism in over a decade, so we really have no idea about what is typical or expected in this situation.

jordanebeaulieu · November 2011

We had our daughter baptized in February when she was 4 months old. We invited family and close friends. My husband and I have agreed that we will raise our children in the Catholic church. I am not Catholic and most of our friends who attended the baptism are not Catholic. We took everyone out to lunch after the ceremony. I don't think we got gifts for the godparents, but we should have.

hcapes9 · November 2011

In our religion, Baptism is something that must be decided upon by the child themselves when they are old enough to make a conscious decision. However when they are babies, we have dedications that basically say the parents grandparents agree to raise the child in a Godly home and raise them in church. So no, no one will be invited except our families, but my parents and sister probably be the only ones that come because everyone else lives hours away.

michelle142 · November 2011

We're only inviting immediate family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins)

I think we're taking everyone to brunch afterwards (it will be about 20 people)

Not sure on the gift thing.

iluvmylab · November 2011

We are only inviting family. My parents, DH's mom & stepdad, DH's dad & stepmom, my sister & BIL, and DH's brother & SIL (they never come to anything though).

Only my family is Catholic, DH's mom is Buddhist. My sister and BIL will be godparents and we aren't doing a gift. No party, just probably having dinner at our house afterwards with family. We might invite a few close friend that live near to join us for dinner, but it won't be a big affair.

indomesticbliss · November 2011

Our LO happened to have his when my SIL's were in town. Otherwise, no one would have been there.

This time, we will probably just have us there. All of our family is over 1500 miles away and DH believes in baptizing asap, so we will be doing it once we are comfortable bringing LO out and afer the holidays.

We did not do anything party wise with #1 and we won't with #2.

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