Baby naming ceremony dilemma

[Anonymous]

We are Jewish and want to have a baby naming ceremony for our daughter who is turning 1 in September. We were originally planning to make it a larger gathering with all of our friends but once we put together the list of family and friends (who all have kids) we would want to invite we are looking at like 50+ people. For that many people we can’t do it at our house and once I looked at venues, rabbi cost and catering it was easily going to cost $5K which is not worth it to us.

We decided to do something much smaller with just family, but we really want to invite one of the families we have grown really close to over the past few years (we also have older boys the same age). The problem is that this family is part of a larger group of friends we have and I am worried if we just invite them and not the others it will send a bad message and cause hurt feelings among the others. In total this group includes 6 other couples who have 15 kids between them... which adds 27 more people and brings us back to the higher cost.

What would you do - just keep it family and not invite any of the friends? Or invite the one couple and hope no one finds out or gets offended? There won’t be pics or anything.

[Anonymous]

Do it at a Rec Center or your backyard, get food from Costco.

[Anonymous]

Chances are not everyone that you invite will come. And if they do, you'll just deal. We invited way too many people, but ended up with a fairly reasonable number at the end. I was totally stressed out at the beginning (we did it when DD was 4 weeks old), but at the end, I just let it go. "Too many people" is a perception. I am sure it will be fine. Everyone will be so happy to be there for your daughter's special day.

Don't worry too much about food. I did and we ended up with way too much. Costco platters are totally fine. We ended up getting platters from a deli, because we were too tired to shop.

Mazel tov!

[Anonymous]

Invite whom you want. I'm sure the others in your social circles know that you are closer to one family than the others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Invite whom you want. I'm sure the others in your social circles know that you are closer to one family than the others.

+1. My daughters bat mitzvah is in 2 weeks. She wanted it small. She is close to one family in my circle of friends and asked to invite them. The other 4 couples and kids are not invited. The 6 families do RH brunch, break fast, both seders, and Chanukah together. Everyone in our circle knows the one family was invited and the others were not. We’re all adults. This is not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

The last baby naming I went to was in a room at a synagogue and had bagels and lox for everyone. I can’t imagine it cost 5k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do it at a Rec Center or your backyard, get food from Costco.

I don't think this is bad advice, but if you have some personal or social reason that won't allow you to do this cheaper than $5k then nix it and do a small family thing. FWIW, every brist or naming ceremony I have been to has a fairly small affair, both in numbers and extravagance of the event. Frequently, the food isn't anything more than fruit, bagels, juice, and coffee. But other circles have different standards and might look at these events as particularly cheap. For my part, I would be glad to be rid of any "friends" that wanted to judge me because of the event space, decoration, food, etc. Celebrating your family and honoring your heritage is what is important- not the chafing dishes or whatever.

[Anonymous]

I'd just do family. This kind of thing happened in a friend grop of mine and caused a lot of tension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The last baby naming I went to was in a room at a synagogue and had bagels and lox for everyone. I can’t imagine it cost 5k

The problem is that we don’t belong to a synagogue so the rates are higher. The room is like $1K for 3 hours, then you have catering high isn’t cheap even if minimal, cost for the rabbi, etc. It just all adds up. I have called like 5 synagogues and it’s all the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do it at a Rec Center or your backyard, get food from Costco.

We live in a pretty small apartment with no outdoor space that can be used. Unfortunately even 20 people will be tight and trust me that in this group almost everyone will show.

[Anonymous]

You are over thinking this. Invite immediate family and the one set of friends that you want, people understand that these events are inmate. Have it at your home and have a simple lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd just do family. This kind of thing happened in a friend grop of mine and caused a lot of tension.

Ehh, my best friend since childhood didn't invite me to her daughters' baptisms...I don't even know who was on the guest lists and truly, I don't care. I knew she had a limited budget and limited room, it hasn't affected our friendship one bit.
If you make it to adulthood and still get hurt by not being invited to stuff you have some pretty big issues. And it shouldn't ever be on a host to deal with those issues.

[Anonymous]

I think if you invite just one family, it's fine. Everyone probably knows youre closer to that family anyways. I think problems only arise when you invite more and leave others out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The last baby naming I went to was in a room at a synagogue and had bagels and lox for everyone. I can’t imagine it cost 5k

How nice for YOU. The last baby naming I went to was at MY HOME, where we served quality food, good champagne, and hired a high schooler to entertain the preschool/toddlers during the ceremony. We had 75-80 people. I can easily imagine it cost around $3k. Not everyone is satisfied with grocery store bagels and lox.

[Anonymous]

I'm Hindu. For our baby naming ceremony at 6 months, we kept it to family for the very reasons that you described.