Aleina's Baptism

Aleina's Baptism. Table Deoration

It was Friday (26 Oct), 2 days before Aleina's baptism, we attend a Prepatory Session required by St. Anne Church. In this session, we were told that any parents/participant who were unable to attend in this session will not be allowed their child to be baptised on this coming Sunday. The next prepartory session will be held on December. We are very lucky that Poland (one of Aleina's godfather) is cooperative and supportive for us; and he really allot his time to attend the session.

28th October, Sunday - the weather is sunny, just right for our event though the reception is just inside our flat. The church is just 15minutes walk from our place. We've start preparation of Aleina at around 8:30 in the morning still we're late in Sunday mass. We have arrived I think in the middle of the Sunday mass. At least, we're not late for the baptism ceremony.

After the Sunday mass, we still have 15minutes allowance before the actual baptism ceremony commence. In which they advise the parents of the child, to feed their baby first, as much as possible. During this time, some of our guests especially the godparents arrived in church.

Initially I thought ceremony will only take about 1 hour. Due to the reason that infant baptism is doing by batch, the actual duration takes for at least 2.5hours.

It was past 2pm already when we reached our flat - the reception venue. All of the food I ordered are there, with full setup and decorated completely! Thanks to my sister, cousin Irish and mil for helping us decorate the house while we're in the church.

I loved the dessert table decorations! Where we placed the cake and other give aways.

Aleina's Baptism Preparation - Part 2

After completing the basic requirements for baptism - church, date/time and the reception venue, I am now thinking of which theme is appropriate for my baby. Coz for me, if I prepare at least a theme, I will have the idea of whatelse to plan - with the help of google of course! So, I've chosen white and pink colours with prints and stripes.

 

So below are the list I think that I need to prepare or engaged with:

• Guests
• Invitations
• Food Catering Services
• Cake
• Give Aways
• Decorations
• DIY Photobooth - my husband is so techy so he told me he want a photobooth for my child so I was fine with this.

 

Guests: We only invited our family, godparents and closed-friends in our party. As this is only a small celebration, we didn't invite more people.

 

Invitations: I've sent an invitation to my guests at least 2 weeks before the actual event through Facebook Event. I design Baptismal Invitation using Adobe Photoshop and placed it in my Facebook event page. I also did a print out of this invitation and set out to Aleina's godparent to make it more official ;).

 

Cake: Now that I've got my theme, I've read lots of forum to where can I get a good cake (in terms of design and taste, of course). For this kind of event, the cake is really not so important, but I'd still want to proceed as this is my very first baptism preparation to my child - it really gets me excited! Browsing around the Cake Avenue's facebook page, I was really amazed of their designs so I made an inquiry with them for my desired cake. Alas, I've managed to order a cake to them at least 3 weeks before the event. I also found out that Natalie is good in customer service and she is prompt to my inquires. You can also visit their Cake Avenue Facebook page for the complete list design cakes.

 

Food Catering: Since all of our guests are Filipinos, I've decided to cater to a Filipino caterer. I've got a contact to Pinoy Catering SG with the use of PinoySG Forum. The main person I contact with is Tintin, seems quite good at first and also, replied my queries promptly though their price is quite expensive compare to the local caterer.

 

Give Aways: After tons of tons of browsing, sometimes I even find myself browsing at US websites, I have found a good website that offers customization - Do Me A Favor . I've found their candies, lollies and other sweets can be cuztomized according to your theme so I've decided to stick to it.

 

Decorations: 2 weeks before the event, my friend Rio & Marge (together with their bf, TJ & Marvin, respectively) helped me for my diy stuffs. They are also excited of decorating the entire living room for this event. Sadly, Marge & Marvin, wasnt be able to attend to the party as they need to fly back to Philippines to prepare for their wedding for January 2013.

 

DIY Photobooth: Albert's prepare the necessary equipments needed for his DIY photobooth especially his photobooth software. Since we have a vacant room, we allot this for our photobooth section. My sister helped me to decorate this room as well as the backdrop, my niece and nephew are also enjoying helping their mom... :)

 

I'll share my photos in my next post.

Aleina's Baptism Preparation - Part 1

At first, we're not fully decided to where we can baptize our baby Aleina. In Filipino tradition, we were told (by my grandmother) that if a baby needs to travel, s/he should be baptise first. This is one consideration we took to make our decision that our precious baby Aleina will be baptised here in Singapore coz we've already set our vacation this coming December - to celebrate christmas and new year in the Philippines - with our respective family.

Before you've move which food, theme and other more party planning details, first you need to finalize the following first:

• Church
• Date & Time
• Venue

First things first, we need to secure to where we can register Aleina for her baptism. Then other planning should be followed like venue, food, decorations, give aways, etc.

St Anne Church, Sengkang East Way

Church: Scouting around, searching the internet, with the help of google, I've found quite a number of church to where we can have the ceremony. Most of them required the following:

• Marriage Certificate of the child's parent issued by the church
• Birth certificate of the infant/baby
• Child's Godparents (1 female and/or 1 male). Child's sponsor/s should provide their baptismal and confirmation certificates.
• Attendance for preparatory session is compulsory for parents and godparents.
• Should register the baby at least 2 weeks before the baptism

 First thing I've inquired was Sacred Heart Church, near Dobhy Ghaut mrt. I've been here in this church once, during my nephew's baptism about 4yrs ago. As I know, that the church doesn't have much requirement for baptism compare with other churches. I've called the church's office to make inquiries but unfortunately we cannot proceed with this church for the following reasons:

                (1) I should register my church near my place

                (2) If we were regularly attending mass to that church, we will be allowed.

                Btw, my sister managed to have her son to be baptized here even though they only had a marriage certificate which is not issued by the church - as they only have civil wedding. According to her, they also didn't have to undergo a prepatory session, which is more I like :).

                So moving forward, I think I've got no choice but to register in St. Anne's church. St. Anne's is quite strict with their requirements; I was having difficulty to get baptism and confirmation certificates of at least 1 godparents we've chosen. At least, we're still lucky that Albert's colleague, Aleina's godfather, who managed to gave us his certificates so we've finalized the venue, date and time for our infant's Baptism.

   

Date and Time: St Anne church only have schedule for Infant Baptism every last Sunday of the (even) months. So, we've only left with 2 options: Oct 28 and December 23. We choose Oct 28 @ 11am coz we've assume that by Dec 23, we might have been flown to Philippines for our vacation.

   

Reception: Just right in time, after we've finalized the church, the date and time, we're now discussing to where will be our reception after the baptism ceremony. Our initial plan was to have the reception at The Studio but since the church is near our place, so we've decided to hold it in our flat in Sengkang.