Baptism on a Budget — a Parent’s Guide

Religious ceremonies are important events for many parents’ out there — especially when it pertains to their children. It’s an opportunity for friends and family to come together and celebrate the child’s life and entrance into this world.

You’ll want the day of your child’s Baptism and/or Christening to go perfectly — but how do you do that without breaking the bank? We’ve listed some tips for you:

The first step after booking a church is to send out invitations. Scrap the hard-copy invites and send out an eVite instead. There’re a plethora of different layouts and themes for online invitations — plus it saves you the trouble of making sure each individual invite is mailed out in time — as you just fill everything out online and the rest will be taken care of for you.

If, however, you are someone who likes an old-fashion invite and that’s important to you, then you’ll want to go over the guest list and prioritize the invitees. Those who are important will get an invitation in the mail — the rest can just be invited via social media or eVite.

Another crucial step in the Christening process is to figure out the food — what and how are you going to feed your guests? Instead of hiring a caterer, DIY your own food bar with ingredients for salad, sandwiches, tacos, etc. And buy plastic ware/napkins in bulk from the supermarket. You can use real dishes for the actual serving platters, but it’s unrealistic to expect real plates and silverware for each and every guest — the cleanup alone would take hours!

As for drinks — don’t buy bottles from the store. Things like punch, lemonade and iced tea can be easily made at home in large quantities.

Author: Aaron Bharucha