We had a visit from the chap who arranges the baptism last night, Ron Jones. Apparently we're getting the canon of Chester, Roy Lawrenson, so that's impressive. All sounds a bit scarey to me, but we were assured that we shouldn't worry and it would all go smoothly.
We were told all sorts about promises and God-parents, parishes and 'Alpha' courses... and we get a nice candle and a wooden fish shaped holder that one of the parishioners made (which is nice).
We were talking about the service where there's someone else getting their little girl 'welcomed' too. Apparently the service is at 11, but we need to be there for 10:45, but apparently the sooner we get there the better seats we get. Just having done a count we think we've got about 55 people coming to the church and others turning up after, so he's a popular little boy :-).
Apparently Roy (/father lawreson?) is about 70 and likes to keep to the older style of service, he does his bit from the pulpit, which apparently is good cos it means we dont have to stand through the whole thing. There's supposidley some questions to which we have to answer some questions (loud enough so everyone will hear or he'll tell us off, apparently), about the fact we're going to bring his up in a Christian way.
Then he takes Benjamin off us, gets him wet (as you would expect) and then wanders off down the aisle with him and gives him to one of the regulars at the church, which symbolises him being accepted into the family (lets hope he doesn't make any funny noises while this is all going on).
While we're not allowed to take any flash photography during the service, apparently after people are happy to pose with the baby. Non-flash photos can be taken, but dad, if you're reading this, you're not allowed to hang from the rafters to get a good angle, even if it does mean you get good lighting or better framing of the photo. I'm sure there will be lots of photos taken and some of which will turn up on here quite shortly.
Posted by nickh at March 6, 2004 01:06 PM