Millie’s Naming: Amelia May Has Her Day

The day arrived for Millie’s Naming Day. As forecast, it was a beautiful morning.

The guests were requested to arrive at 2pm for the ceremony to start at 3pm with the exception of Stuart’s parents whom arrived the night before and a couple of friends had said they would journey down early to avoid the traffic and spend the morning on the beach so would arrive at ours about lunchtime to get ready. During the morning, we also received texts by friends announcing their train would arrive around 1pm and so there was a steady trickle of guests from 1pm really.

There was a moment when the weather clouded over & we feared it wasn’t going to be the gorgeous sunny day we were promised but the cloud was short lived and the sun popped its head out of the clouds again after an hour or so. We don’t get a lot of direct sunlight in our back garden anyway but it is still nice to have a sunny day and we certainly didn’t want rain.

I was a bit frantic at the start, trying to get final bits ready – thankfully, my Mum and Aunt took control of making the Pimms & Sangria and Millie was napping until about 1.30pm. When Millie woke, I got her dressed in her beautiful Monsoon dress.

The Humanist Celebrant, Brenda, arrived about 2.15pm and we went over anything outstanding and I introduced her to the Guiding Adults. As most of the guests were there already by 2.30pm we looked at starting he ceremony earlier than planned. We waited a little longer for a couple of stragglers but then actually made a start around 2.45pm. Brenda had suggested we put a couple of chairs out where the ceremony was to be held for Stuart and I to sit in. We had to stand for all of Callum’s so I was quite relieved we’d be sitting this time, especially as my heels had started to kill my feet after just 1 hour of wearing them! We took our places and the ceremony started. Stuart and I had already read the words that were to be said prior to the day but it was lovely to listen to them and to see the reaction of the audience.

Brenda introduced members of our larger family, Callum & Millie exchanged gifts of friendship bracelets, the story behind Millie’s name and its meaning was explained, the Guiding Adults, of which there were 5 – Clare, Lorna, Daniel, Lisa, Keith, awkwardly did their part, bless them, and Stuart read his poem.

There were only a couple of parts of the ceremony that didn’t go entirely to plan and that was the bubbles – we wanted bubbles to be blown by the children whenever there was applause but the bubbles we bought (from Asda!!!) were rubbish and I hadn’t thought to try them out before or refill them with the fantastic refill bottle I had at the ready (from Tesco ) which would’ve worked brilliantly. I think the children pretty quickly lost interest when they couldn’t make their bubbles work. Also, midway through the ceremony someone in the park behind our house decided to start flying their remote control aeroplane! However, we made light of these incidents and the rest of the ceremony went beautifully. We then listened to a chosen song of Yesterday Once More by the Carpenters (the first song I remember hearing in the delivery room after Millie was born) while the Cava was poured and distributed (on hindsight it would’ve been a better idea to have had this poured before the ceremony started as there was a little delay while this was going on). Keith, one of the Guiding Adults, delivered the toast to our beautiful daughter Amelia May.

After a polite stay, Brenda said her goodbyes and we waited for the hog roast take-away server to arrive. It took a while to set up and it looked like we had a lot of hungry guests, especially as the wonderful smells were starting to drift but finally the food was declared open – with a few sneaky steals of crackling before the official start! I was nervous about the food but thankfully it went down really well except perhaps the vegetarian, although being a tasty option, perhaps not large enough for some.

The kids had a whale of a time, running around, playing with balloons, dressing up, chasing the Child Catcher (Keith). They were so well behaved!

All the guests appeared to be enjoying themselves and getting merry.

I did find I continued to be quite frantic throughout and whenever I tried to sit down or chill I would find someone coming up to me informing me the toilet wasn’t flushing or a child asking me for a drink or informing telling me the food was ready to be packed up or a child was running out the front unsupervised to chase a balloon and, when people would comment on what a wonderful day it was and that I must be so pleased with how it had turned out, I just felt a bit frazzled. I felt like I had hardly chatted with anyone and everything had turned into a bit of a haze. Later in the evening once all the guests that weren’t staying had left, I got to chill with many large drinks and I could finally take a step back and reflect on how the day had gone and I was absolutely thrilled it went so well, proud of my friends and family and very flattered that so many people made their (for many) long and arduous journeys to get to, what was for us, a very special day to welcome our daughter. To have such amazing friends and family made me feel truly very rich in life. A couple of people the next day said, for me, it must have been very similar to a wedding which passes by in  a bit of a blur with you feeling like you didn’t get to spend any quality time with anyone. That is exactly what it was like for me.

Unfortunately, one dear set of friends didn’t make it as sadly they had to spend most of their day in A&E with their poorly baby daughter. Of course, they were missed but I felt for them as they kept me informed and dearly hoped to make it however late and if that was me, I’d just be wanting to spend time with my family recovering. Eventually, I suggested they drop their elder daughter round to have a play while the couple spent time catching up on some rest & looking after the other poorly daughter. It was a bit crazy for her, bless her, when she arrived but I tried to settle her in and introduced her to a few of the children & hopefully she had a good time while she was there and hopefully it gave her parents (and sister) a bit of time to regroup.

One of my friends kindly took charge of my phone and took photos and a video of the ceremony itself so here’s the video of the ceremony if you care to watch (00:16:33):

The next day came with a few sore heads but once the overnight guests had departed we opened the presents. Millie was thoroughly spoilt and we can’t thank people enough for their generosity and, for some, their creativity.

To all our guests, and specifically our Guiding Adults, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for making our daughter’s Naming Day such a special day and one we will remember forever.

Millie’s Naming: The plan

Saturday, at exactly 11 months, Millie had her Naming Ceremony.

We had a naming ceremony for Callum too but we lived in Godalming then. We hired an area of our local pub which had a lovely garden which we hoped we’d be able to use if the weather was nice but unfortunately the weather was a bit unpredictable so we actually held it inside. It was a nice pub and they provided a light tea for after the ceremony (or people could buy their own meals if hungry). We set ourselves a budget of £250. £170 for the Humanist Celebrant (which was the going rate at that time) and then the rest for food. The venue hire was free and we agreed with the pub that they would provide tea for half the number of guests to keep the costs down.

For Millie, we hoped to get a similar venue to what we had for Callum’s – a nice pub that may have a hire cost but provided the food for free or had free hire and we paid for food. Much research later, it was evident that this option wasn’t going to be possible. We looked into venues like AFC Bournemouth Football stadium, Goldsands and also a couple of hotels nearby but once you calculated the costs it wasn’t going to be cheap.

The first thing we did, before any venue deciding or invitation sending or even decide on a date, was find a Humanist Celebrant. It would’ve been nice to have the same person who performed Callum’s but the Celebrants tend to work in specific areas/counties unless you pay for their travel on top. We weren’t precious about having the same person so I searched the local area and contacted Brenda Harris. But that was nearly a bit of a palaver. Not the initial contact but trying to arrange the face to face meeting. Brenda was going on an extended holiday of about 4 weeks and she would get back the day before we were due to go on our own 2 week holiday meaning it would be mighty close to the actual naming day before we got to meet. Thankfully, as it turned out, we pushed our holiday back a week later so we met the week in between our respective holidays. Brenda also rather kindly went against usual practices and forwarded an information gathering document for us to complete while she was away so that it wasn’t all left to the last minute if we didn’t get to meet until the end of June and so she could start writing the ceremony while we were away.

The Humanist Celebrant was now £200 instead of £170. Stuart’s parents very generously offered to gift us some money towards the ceremony so that paid for the Celebrant. As we weren’t going to find a venue that provided either the hire free or the food, we decided we had to up our budget to a total of £400 (including the Celebrant) which left us with £200. No venue was coming in at £200 or less so we had this grand idea of hosting it at our house, in the garden. We would then spend the £200 on catering/food. It wasn’t until a couple of months after sending the invites that it dawned on us! Drink! The guests were going to expect drink! We hadn’t put ‘bring a bottle’ on the invites so they would probably expect us to provide it. If we had gone for a venue, the guests would have bought their own drinks. Doh! Budget now completely blown to (up) Uranus and back!

We invited 50+ guests (incl. children) and most of them accepted. That was another ‘bright idea’ that resulted in inflated cost! I thought, hey I’ll save some money and make the invitations myself! Hmmm! I was warned that if I went to Hobbycraft, I would spend twice what I intended and come out with things I never new I needed. Well, it wasn’t quite that bad but lets just say it would have definitely been cheaper to have bought them or even have had one of those online card/photo companies make them.

Then there’s the slight issue that I am not as ‘crafty’ as I think I am in my head. In my head I have such talent and creative flair but when I try to put pen to paper (or glue & glitter to card) it seems to seep out of my pores until by the time it reaches my hands I have the talent of a 6 year old! I opted for the ‘keep each one unique’ approach. No one card was the same! (that’s my story & I’m sticking to it!)

We looked up a few options regarding food/catering: Hog Roast; Paella; M&S Catering; Sainsbury’s Catering; but finally decided to go for Hog Roast take-away (with server) but only made the final decision less than 2 weeks before the day. Having looked further into the M&S Catering or Sainsbury’s catering, we really weren’t going to get much for our money and it would require someone to go and pick it up straight after the ceremony (someone who wasn’t drinking). So we enquired whether a local Hog Roast caterer had any availability, fully expecting them to say no being prime wedding season! Thankfully, they had a space but we still ummed and ahhhed before we finally went ahead as it was still going to blow the £200 (again!).

 

With just one weekend free before the ceremony, we then looked at our very weathered decking and realised we were going to have to stain it before the day. Stuart was away the weekend so that was left to me but with 2 kiddies running about, the only sensible time to do it would be after they had gone to bed. Thank heavens for clear, dry and light summer evenings. It took me about 3 nights to complete (over 2 hours each night) but it looked a thousand times better and was definitely the right move! I also tidied up a the garden a bit on that weekend before the event.

The week leading up to the day, aside from staining the decking, I felt like I was running here there and everywhere, looking for outfits for Millie and I (I stuck with and old one in the end) and buying last minute bits. The credit card was red hot! Thankfully, Stuart did most of the booze shop but there were a few things we had forgotten like Cava for the toast. I finally found a suitable dress to buy Millie the day before the ceremony – well I actually saw it when I looked earlier in the week but wasn’t sure about it then when I went back to Monsoon, it was the first dress that caught my eye and practically jumped off the rail for me to buy it and I’m so pleased I did. She looked beautiful in it!

So, to read our ‘planning’ you could say it was a bit hectic, disorganised and I was a tad stressed by the time the day arrived but to see if it was all worth it, read the next post about the actual ceremony and reception and think of this post as ‘how not to arrange a Naming Day!’

To be continued…