Invitation templates / Christening invitations
Pressed in Spring: a christening invitation template
A herbarium sheet: spring flowers are laid down one by one under glassine and the specimen label types itself; guests open the flower press, look through the hand lens and lay a flower of their own.
The design
The whole invitation is a herbarium sheet, the heavy cream paper a botanist presses flowers onto, with every part of a real collection: pressed specimens with their veins showing through, strips of linen tape strapping the stems down, a typewritten label with its printed field names, a red accession stamp, glassine, field notes in pencil and a centimetre scale at the foot. It opens on a bare sheet: the baby's photograph is mounted, the flowers are laid round it one by one, the straps are pressed on, a sheet of glassine slides over them and the label types the child's name, the date and the church. Guests slide the glassine off by its tab, unscrew the wing nuts of a flower press to find the flower picked the morning the baby arrived, drag a brass hand lens over a specimen (and find a pencilled line too small to read without it), open each godparent's glassine seed packet for the flower chosen for them and what it means, turn the photographs over like sheets in a folio, and lay a flower of their own on the closing sheet. Sponsors are an exchange list, the roles in the service are determination slips, the order of the day grows a stem as you scroll with a bud opening at each moment, the reception is a second locality, the livestream a loan slip for family far away, and every reply is stamped RECEIVED in red ink.
Colours and type
Pressed in Spring comes in 3 colourways: Herbarium cream, Rosehip and Cornflower, with 2 type pairings: Linnaean and Field label. The colours and type change in the editor at any time; the layout stays its own.
Who it suits
Made for christening / baptism, baby dedication and naming day, in the Floral & botanical style.
What is included
An invitation website with the church and the celebration after, the godparents, your photos, a song if you want one, and the RSVP with the number of adults and children coming. You write your own words and add your photos in the live editor, send every guest a personal link by email or any messaging app, and follow the replies as they come in. Free for up to 20 guests, with the full design.
More christening templates
- The Garden Gate: A garden painted in oils as your guests walk in: the white gate swings open onto lunch under the willow, the blossom drops its petals over the godparents' bench, a robin splashes in the bird bath, and the little tree planted for your child takes everyone's ribbon.
- Meadow at Knee Height: A walk through a spring meadow at knee height: grass sways all round the words, daisies open as you reach each part, and a dandelion clock waits by the reply.
- In the Olive's Shade: A lime-washed chapel wall in an olive grove, an olive branch swaying over the child's name and its shadow moving across the whole invitation.
- The Shallows: Clear, shallow sea seen from above: small fish school over rippled sand, a turtle drifts by, and the child's name floats on the surface, its shadow on the sand below.
- First Light: A valley at dawn, painted wet in watercolour as you watch: the sun dropped into a rose and gold sky, ridge behind ridge, and a butterfly resting on a painted cosmos.
- Wet Watercolour: A sheet of cold-press paper that paints itself: drops of pigment fall, bloom and dry into flowers around the child's name, and the guest gets to paint too.
- The White Rose Posy: The florist's bench on the christening morning: a white rose opens in its bud vase, and the posy is made as you read, a rose set in for each godparent.
All christening invitation templates