Christening Invitations

Christening is a religious rite of passage event for a young child. It can take many forms, but most often involves baptism and blessing. Christening Invitations are sent out to friends and family to invite them to attend this special ceremony.

Depending on your particular religion (if any) a child christening can take different forms. Some Christian traditions, such as Catholic, celebrate by baptizing the infant in the presence of everyone there. The act of infant baptism is often seen as the beginning of that child's salvation within this tradition.

Some Protestant traditions opt for a public blessing of the child and a charge of obedience to the parents in raising that child. Often the congregation will be encouraged to take part in the raising of the child in the ways of God. Infant baptism isn't included here as Protestants (generally) don't theologically believe that infant baptism brings salvation.

Since you will find several variants of these two traditions everywhere you go, there might also be a sense in which Christening gives the child a name. Certainly the legal name of the child was determined at birth, but christening can be used as a public declaration and affirmation of that name.

The christening event is a very special event in the life of that child and should be shared with friends, family, godparents, church leaders and even church congregations at times. There are usually lots of photos and videos taken of the event, and an official christening certificate is sometimes given to parents as a memento.

Christening invitations communicate the importance of this event and invite loved ones to join in the celebration. They should be sent out with enough advanced warning to allow the invitees to free up their schedule for the occasion.

If you're like most people, you'll have first sent out pregnancy announcements to announce your pregnancy, followed by birth announcements to announce the birth of your child. After a period of time, and when you're ready to have your child christened, you'd send out the christening invites.

Note that christening invitations can also be called baptism invitations.

There are certainly many ways to create and customize unique christening invitations. Traditionally they are more formal in nature, but that doesn't have to always be the case and you shouldn't let that limit your options.

Naturally, the more popular christening or baptism invitations seem to be the ones with photos of the child being blessed.

The verses chosen generally announce the details of the event, including the child's name, parent's names (often along with names of siblings), location and time of the ceremony. With most online retailers, it's possible to customize the verse to suit your needs.