Peter Rabbit Themed Baptism

So this blog post is just a little bit late, we celebrated Zac’s Baptism on Saturday 20th October. Both me and Ricky are Catholic and so wanted to bring Zac up the same. We contacted our local church to arrange the ceremony and attended one class at the church in preparation.

We hadn’t planned on an Autumn Baptism, but our local church was fully booked until then. I didn’t want to wait till the following year as Zac would most likely be on the move by then; the thought of trying to sit through the whole ceremony with a toddler who just wanted to run around gave me a headache just thinking about it! So an autumn baptism it was going to be!

It was all quite last minute as we only had about a month from the day we booked it till the special day! So as soon as we had confirmation of the date I began planning. After a bit of scrolling through Pinterest I decided that I wanted the day to have a Peter Rabbit Theme. I have loved everything Peter Rabbit since the day I found out I was having a little boy.

As I work in marketing I am used to designing and creating marketing material, so I decided I would make the Invitations myself. I thought this would add a special touch as well as save us some money! We bought some card and printed them at home, and I think they turned out really well (If I do say so myself!)

One of the first things we had to decide was who we were going to chose for the special role as Godparents. Both me and Ricky had two godparents, one male and one female, so we chose to do the same for Zac. Conveniently Ricky has 1 brother and I have 1 sister, so this seemed like the obvious choice! I wanted the godparents to be close family as quite often friendships drift apart over time and I wanted Zac to always have a close relationship with his godparents.

I wanted to officially ask them both to take on this special role and so started looking for “Will you be my Godmother/father card online. I came across some lovely cards on Etsy from Joanne Hawker (Gifted). The cards have a scratch card section, to reveal the big question. I thought this was such an amazing touch! Inside I added a message from Zac as well as an outline of his handprint.

In my head I had planned on Zac wearing cute little dungaree shorts or a little white short suit set at his Baptism. But due to the weather at the time this just wasn’t practical. I searched for ages online looking for something weather appropriate but also cute. I wasn’t a fan of christening ‘gowns’ on little boys, or the traditional puffy sailor suits! Then I had the idea of a knitted romper. I found a few beautiful Pretty Originals rompers but they all seemed to be last seasons stock and sold out on most websites. But I did finally find one in stock on a children’s special occasion wear online store (I wont tag them as they quite quickly went into liquidation after and I had to put in a claim for money which I should have been refunded – but that’s another story!). The romper had a sweet little collar with baby blue detailing. I bought a little pair of shoes with baby blue ribbon laces to match.

Next on my list, and one of the most important parts of any party, was the cake! I Wanted Zac’s Baptism cake to be in keeping with the Peter Rabbit theme whilst still being a Baptism cake. So what better way to combine the two then a beautiful blue and white cake, with both Peter Rabbit characters and a cross! The cake was made by a local cake maker “Cakes by Jacqui B“. The bottom tier was sponge (safe option for kids) and the top was red velvet (because its mine and Ricky’s fave!)

In addition to Zac’s main baptism cake, we also had a carrot cake and cupcakes. The Carrot cake was from Costco and fitted in perfectly with the rabbit theme! The cupcakes were actually paw patrol cupcakes from Tesco. They came in the perfect baby blue and white coclours but were much cheaper than having them made! It was only £7 for 12 cupcakes. I just took the paw patrol pictures off and replaced them with Peter rabbit toppers from eBay! (Please excuse the fact the toppers are wonky in this photo – This was Ricky’s job and a left him to take the photo)

We decided to hold the reception at home as we wanted to keep costs down. The main entertaining area was our conservatory which we decorated with different shade blue and white paper pom poms, tassles and hanging stars. I bought all of these really cheap from eBay (Make sure you order in advance though as you will get the cheapest prices from China, but delivery can take a month!) I also bought balloons which spelt out “Zac’s Baptism” to go across the windows in the conservatory (I didn’t actually get a photo of them but you can see half of it behind us in the photos!). Another photo which I didn’t get was the Peter Rabbit signs we had around the house, you can see one on the wall in the photo above ^^

In addition to the cake for people to take home, I also wanted to get some small favours for the day. I found the cutest mini personalised chocolates on eBay. To make it even better they did Peter Rabbit theme ones! I put them in little organza bags to hand out to people as they left (me being me I actually forgot to give any out, so most got handed out about a month after – and we still have some in the kitchen now)

I wanted some sentimental touches on the day, I think it is so special to have items which have been passed down or have meaning. As part of the ceremony the baby needs to be covered in a ‘white garment’ my mum had recently found my younger sisters white knitted blanket that she used at her baptism, so we decided to use this. The most special thing Zac wore on the day was his crucifix. This was a necklace which belonged to my nan who passed away a few years ago. It meant so much to me that a piece of her could be there on the day, especially as she never got to meet Zac.

One of the last things to sort, and like usual left to the last minute, was my outfit. Finding an outfit for a special occasion when you are 7 months post partum and bigger than you have ever been is really difficult. I felt like I had no idea how to even dress myself. I wanted something which ‘matched’ Zac, so I was looking along the lines of a white or baby blue dress. I tried about 20 dresses on (You may have seen quite a few of these if you watch my stories on Instagram). I settled for a baby blue floral midi dress from Boohoo. I felt that whilst it was quite fitted, the thick material and floral pattern helped to hide some of the lumps and bumps (That and my giant pull in pants!). I bought Ricky a pale blue skinny tie to match (Because obviously the whole family have to match when you go to an event, or is that just me?)

On the day everything was going smoothly and to plan – Zac even had his nap on time in the morning! Until 10 minutes before we were due to leave we had a phone call from Ricky’s mum to say that they had had a major leak! This resulted in everyone running around there trying to help and them being late to the church. This meant they didn’t get any photos with Zac at the church (We had to recreate the Baptism a few weeks later so they could have some photos).

During the ceremony Zac was relatively well behaved. He was due a bottle and I was trying to give him this at the start, but he didn’t have time to finish it before we were called up to the alter, so he was a little grumpy at this point. He was better with the water being poured over his head than I thought he would be!

These are some of the beautiful photos which we got at the church and during the ceremony. 

Looks like a lovely, beautiful ceremony, with a well behaved child, right? Well here are some of the outtakes which show the reality of trying to get a baby to cooperate when they are hungry…

Following the ceremony everyone headed back to our house where the food was all laid out ready. We quite quickly got Zac changed as I didn’t want him to get all food down his white outfit. We were kindly sent a gorgeous Peter Rabbit romper from Bella Maria Boutique for Zac to wear to his party. The print was absolutely gorgeous!

Zac had so much fun at the party playing with his bestie Jenson and all of his second cousins (I think they are second cousins? things like that always confuse me!). He loved all the attention he got from everyone.

Zac had such a wonderful day and he really enjoyed himself, so much so that he completely crashed in his ball pit after everyone left! .

For the most part everything went to plan, and we have beautiful memories and photos to keep forever. Whilst we have some special photos from the day I thought it would be a lovely idea to have some professional photos done of Zac in his baptism outfit, where he was a little less grumpy! Sophie Burles photography managed to capture some gorgeous photos of him!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make Zac’s day so special. From all the guests that attended to the small businesses who helped supply the most beautiful items.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about Zac’s special day and maybe you have got some inspiration for any baby Baptism, Christening or Birthday parties! Now I need to go start planning Zac’s first birthday party!