Christenings
Christening invitations for older children: clear ideas
When the christening comes at five rather than at six months, the invitation has to change with him. Here's how to write it so he reads it himself.
Send The Joy · October 1, 2026 · 4 min read
Leo turns five in March and his christening is in April. Last week his mum asked him what he wanted on the invitation, and he said it without looking up from the floor: "a T-rex, and my name big." That answer is the whole brief for christening invitations for older children.
When the christening lands at five or six instead of at six months, the invitation has to do a different job. It has to be read by a child who recognises his own name in print, and by forty adults who need a time and an address. Both of those fit on the same page. Here's how.
At five, the guest of honour already has opinions
Ask him before you pick the design. If he says dinosaurs, the cover carries a dinosaur and the label changes from "We're waiting for you" to "See you Saturday". He can read his own name at that age, so put it large in the first scene and leave the godparents' names for the block with the date and the place. If two siblings are being christened, one invitation can hold both names and one date; you don't need two separate links going round.
- Two or three photos of him in the park or at home, not only from the christening day
- The exact line he'll read on the cover, written the way he would say it
- Time and place fixed, with the address copied as it appears on the map
- Full names of the child and the godparents, nothing shortened
Christening invitations for older children: the words do the work
Swap "are pleased to invite you" for something he'd actually say: "I'm turning five and I'm getting christened — come and eat with me." Keep one detail per block: label, names, date, place. Nobody should be hunting for the time in the middle of a paragraph. In the editor each of those is its own field, with a character count, so you can see a line running long before you publish it.
Save the nicest sentence for the last scene. It lands better after the photos and the details, once the guest already knows what's happening and where to be.
An invitation a five-year-old can read out loud is an invitation his grandparents can follow.
A christening with kids aged 5 to 8 gets planned out loud
Say on the invitation whether there's room to run: a garden, a park next door, a hall. Families with children notice, and they plan around it. Name the time of the cake or the balloon. If the older child is the one being christened, the photo with the cake happens at 6.30, and that detail belongs in the celebration scene. Add your own question in the RSVP form asking how many are coming from each household, so you're not counting heads across three different chats.
A digital christening invitation you can fix after sending
If rain moves lunch from the garden to the sitting room, you edit that scene and the same link shows the new place. Changing the time, the map or the dress code doesn't mean reprinting anything or messaging people one by one: guests see the updated version when they open it. You can swap a photo after sending, too. The link stays the same, so the family group chat doesn't fill up with versions that no longer apply.
Send it where it actually gets read. One link works for the family group and the school group, and some people will open it on the tablet in the kitchen. Grandparents don't install anything: they open it in their phone's browser and reply from there. And if someone wants something to keep in a drawer, the sensible combination is a link for everyone plus a few printed copies you arrange yourself.
Once the design is picked, the trial is free and you only pay when the whole invitation is ready to go out. Get the photos and his sentence ready, then publish the link before the questions start arriving.
