Christening Invitations with Allergies: The Menu Note

Sunday lunch. Your sister asks the question you have been dodging all week: can Leo have the cake? You do not know yet. The restaurant has not answered, the christening is getting close, and you still have to feed everyone at the table.

This is a wording problem before it is a catering problem. Christening invitations with allergies do the work in one scene: the one guests read just before they tap confirm. Put the note there and the restaurant works from a list instead of from guesswork. Leave it for later and you spend the week before the christening forwarding messages between your aunt and the kitchen.

Where the allergy note sits on a christening invitation

Put the note on the last scene guests see before the confirm button. If they read it after tapping yes, they read it too late. Write it as a normal sentence, not an allergen chart: 'For Leo we have a nut-free plate; if your table needs something similar, tell us.' Nobody needs your family's medical history on screen. They need to know who to write to, and how.

• One menu line: dairy-free purée for the little ones and a gluten-free option for adults.
• An allergy contact with a name and a phone number, visible before the confirm button.
• The name of the dish that can be eaten, rather than a list of what cannot.
• The exact time the table is served, for anyone who needs to eat at a set hour.

One phone number solves more than a form

Leave a contact with a name on it: 'Allergies and special menus — message Marta on 07700 900123.' That beats a field marked 'dietary requirements', because now someone is responsible and guests know who. Write it the way you would say it out loud: 'Leo cannot have nuts.' Your aunt gets it, and so does the kitchen.

Here is the copy, ready to use: 'If anyone at your table has an allergy or intolerance, write to us on 07700 900123 before 10 May and we will talk to the restaurant.' Short, plain, and it gives the kitchen a date to work with.

The baby's plate gets a line too

Say what the guest of honour is eating: 'Leo will have dairy-free vegetable purée and fruit.' Then nobody leans over with a forkful of cake. If he is on breast milk or formula, one line saves you the 'so what does the baby eat?' question halfway through the main course. Ask the restaurant about the cake before you write the word cake — plenty of them carry nuts or traces of nuts.

Change the menu without resending a hundred messages

If the restaurant swaps a dish on Thursday, you edit the invitation and the link stays the same. Guests open it and read the current version. Someone drops out or the time moves: no envelopes to reprint and no messages to send one by one. Replies arrive inside the invitation in a single list, so counting plates does not mean scrolling through a group chat. If the grandparents want something for the shelf, print a few copies for them and send everyone else the link.

Write the menu note once, in the scene before the confirm button, and the invitation can carry it from there.

Publish the note once and stop chasing replies

Write the menu line once and let the invitation do the rest: every guest sees what is served and who to tell about an allergy, and you are not passing messages between your aunt and the kitchen. Pick a christening design, try it free, and publish it once the menu is settled.