I had so much fun planning Autumn’s christening, that in many ways I couldn’t wait to do it again for Reuben. Having our children baptised is something that’s really important to me. The rest of our family and friends seem to appreciate and enjoy the occasion too! Nevertheless, my life is busier these days, so it was actually quite stressful! Both children were unwell and Reuben was teething in the few weeks leading up to Reuben’s baptism. This resulted in me having even less time than usual. Still, I pulled it off in the end (just as the bestie I vented to said I would!)
Choosing Godparents
Just like when we chose Autumn’s Godparents, we wanted to choose people who we could see in our lives for years to come. We chose one of my best friends from school and wanted to choose another. However, she hasn’t been christened or baptised so wasn’t allowed. The natural choice instead was to choose her boyfriend. I’d consider him to have also become a friend in the years since we’ve known him, no thanks to my husband’s harsh Cards Against Humanity round about him the first time we met! (Or maybe the banter did help, who knows?!) We also chose another close friend from school and her husband. It wasn’t too difficult to make these choices and are so happy with what a wonderful set of Godparents Reuben has!
Invitations
It was a bit difficult to create the invitations as I didn’t know how many people we were going to be able to invite. I was concerned about whether the christening was going to be able to go ahead at all as things have been so unpredictable over the last year. “Freedom day” had been chalked up as being in June when we started planning it. However, I decided to wait until July in case of any delays. It was just as well I did, as “freedom day” didn’t end up being until a few days before Reuben’s baptism!
Even so, I didn’t dare to make plans for the refreshments afterwards until really close to the date.
Venue
The beautiful venue for Reuben’s baptism was beautiful Rochester Cathedral. He seemed fascinated by the high ceilings and stained glass windows.
Decorations
I absolutely adore Beatrix Potter characters, including Peter Rabbit. Anyone familiar with Peter knows that he loves radishes, stolen from Mr. McGregor’s vegetable garden. Reuben’s most favourite toy is a radish, so Peter Rabbit was a good choice for the theme of the decorations and cake. Under the cake table, we had carrot bunting. The paper plates were light blue and we had scalloped Peter Rabbit print paper napkins.
Food
My in-laws kindly said they would buy food from Costco for the event. We chose a variety of sandwich and wrap platters as well as some delicious cheesecakes. They also brought crisps, vegetable platters and some other nibbles and drinks. It was a good spread and there was definitely something for everyone. Unfortunately, I only managed to have one tiny wrap and a piece of cucumber as I was so busy trying to talk to everyone who came. I was starving when we got home and had a bit of cheesecake though, which was really lovely.
Cake
For Autumn’s christening, we followed tradition and used the top tier of our wedding cake. Obviously, there was no more wedding cake left for us to use! As such, I started looking for inspiration online until I found some beautiful Peter Rabbit cakes. Then it was a case of trying to find someone to make it. I’m good at making delicious cakes, but they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing! I sadly also lack the time to bake at the moment.
I searched on Facebook for local cake makers with good reviews and finally found the perfect one: Slice of Indulgence by Rebecca Jane. I asked her to make a cake similar to what I’d seen, with a rainbow above Peter Rabbit as Reuben is my rainbow baby. When she sent me a video through of it the day before the christening, I couldn’t believe it. It was just so amazing and exceeded my expectations!
It tasted so incredible too. She has such an amazing array of flavours on offer and I want to try them all. However, we opted for lemon for the bottom tier and passionfruit for the top.
Reuben’s Outfit
I wanted a simple romper and hat for Reuben, preferably in satin. It didn’t take much searching on Etsy to find the perfect one! It was made so beautifully and he looked so cute in it.
We had a wonderful day of celebration. It was so good to actually be able to celebrate an occasion semi-normally again after the last year, too.