Christening and Naming Day Travel: Car Seats and Timing

A short service and a long day around it

The service itself is rarely more than half an hour, and often sits inside a Sunday morning parish service rather than standing alone. Everything around it is longer: relatives arriving from three directions, photographs outside the church, and a lunch that runs into the afternoon. The travel plan has to serve the day rather than the ceremony.

The two groups who most need thinking about are the very young and the very old. Between them they set the pace, the vehicle choice and the number of stops, and planning around them makes everything else straightforward. Everybody else can walk a little further, wait a little longer and travel in whichever vehicle happens to suit the numbers.

Child seats, and why they are agreed in advance

The law treats licensed private hire vehicles differently from private cars, and a chauffeur is not obliged to carry a child seat in the way a parent driving their own car must use one. That is not the standard we prefer to work to. Where an infant or toddler is travelling, the sensible arrangement is a properly fitted seat of the right type, agreed when the booking is made.

Fitting takes time and cannot be improvised at the kerb on a Sunday morning. Tell us the child's age and weight, whether you would rather use your own seat, and whether more than one is needed, and it is arranged before the day rather than discussed on it.

• Child seat type confirmed against age and weight at booking
• Your own seat fitted instead, if you prefer a familiar one
• Space for a folded pushchair as well as the passengers
• A boot that still holds the changing bag and the christening gown

Grandparents, godparents and the walk to the door

Village churches are frequently the least accessible buildings in the parish: gravel paths, a lych gate too narrow for a car, and a slope up to the porch. For an older relative in Sunday shoes that is a real obstacle, and it is the sort of thing families discover at ten to eleven on the day.

It is worth asking the parish office where vehicles may stop and whether there is a nearer entrance. Most churches are happy to help and many have a practical answer that is not obvious from the road. We confirm the arrangement for your church rather than assuming a general rule.

From the church to the lunch

Most christenings move on to a family lunch, at home, at a pub or at a hotel. The gap between the two is where the day usually slips, because photographs outside a church with a baby take exactly as long as the baby decides they take.

An open arrangement suits this better than a fixed departure time. The car waits nearby, and it moves when the family are ready rather than when a schedule says so. If the lunch is at home, it is also worth checking who is bringing the cake, because it invariably needs its own flat surface.

Arranging it simply

For a family occasion of this kind the useful details are few: the church, the service time, how many adults and children are travelling, whether any child seats are needed, and where lunch is. That is enough to plan properly. Anything else, including who is bringing the cake and which grandparent needs collecting first, can be added later without changing the shape of the day.

Send those over WhatsApp on +44 (0) 7775 554 848 and we will come back with what we propose, including where the car will stand while you are inside. Village churches vary enormously on that point, and it is a question far better answered during the week than at five to eleven on the Sunday.

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