Baby Dedication Party Ideas for Decorations + Activities (Also Christening!)
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My older daughter’s baby dedication party back in 2016 was a huge shindig for our family. I went all out with decorations, guest activities, fun foods, party favors, and more. When it came time to plan a dedication reception for my second daughter, I felt I needed to put as much effort, creativity, and love into the planning of my younger daughter’s baby dedication party.
Now that we’ve finished her baby dedication, I’m going to share with you all my super awesome baby dedication party ideas! I think it turned out just as well, if not better, than my first daughter’s baby dedication reception. Mostly because I had a little better idea of how to throw a dedication party and what to expect with a tiny baby around the house!
Many of these ideas will translate well to parties for baby christenings and baby baptisms as well! Our church practices family dedication or baby dedication, though, which is what I’ll call it throughout this post.
So, read on for all the ideas!
Baby Dedication Party Food Ideas
Up first, the food! This is one of my favorite parts of any party!
Yogurt Bar
I already made a whole separate yogurt parfait bar post (so head on over there if you want the free printable and more info!) With church being at 9 am, hosting a party immediately after church that involves food has a few limitations. First, we have to leave the church straight for the house so there is no time to prepare the food immediately before the guests arrive. It all has to be done the night before or right before the church service. Second, 10:30 am (when church is over) is an awkward time to host a party meal-wise. Breakfast time? Lunch time? I liked the idea of a yogurt bar because it’s a great brunch option. Greek yogurt makes it a nice, filling snack and I love how each guest can customize their own yogurt parfait.
The selection of toppings included a lot of fruit, nuts, and cookies as toppings.
My favorite part of the yogurt parfait bar was definitely the fruit cross made out of blackberries. I used skewers to set this up.
Honestly, I’m a huge lover of all party food bars. Here are some other food bars we’ve put together in the past: Build-a-burger bar, trail mix party bar, and campfire cones bar.
Cinnamon Roll Cross: Breakfast + Dessert Combined
Because cinnamon rolls are tasty any time of day, I added this breakfast option as a nice, sweet side to the yogurt bar.
This is one of my more clever additions to the party, I think! I bought several cans of store-bought cinnamon rolls and lined a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. I baked for the amount of time indicated on the back of the package, and it came out perfect. In the end, I drizzled icing on the tops. I liked the look of the cinnamon roll food cross without the icing, but my guests definitely preferred the taste of it with the icing!
How to Make a Cookie Cake Cross for Dedication
This fun cookie cake cross can be used for any religious celebration such as a baptism, communion, christening, or baby dedication!
All you have to do is get a cookie or cookie cake recipe and first cook it. As a busy mom of 2, I used a storebought mix. You want to use a sheet pan and press the cookie into a thin layer. Once the cookie bakes in the oven, you’ll be left with a rectangle-shaped cookie. I then took a knife and carefully cut out 4 small rectangles to make the cross shape you see below.
The edges of the cross are frosted with the Pillsbury storebought frosting that comes in a plastic piping bag, and the E in the middle is made from small, pink edible candy rounds. Overall, I was pleased with how the cross cookie cake turned out!
Baby Dedication Decorations – DIY
Along the way, I’ve been posting on the construction of some of these baby dedication decoration ideas, so I’ll just sum them up here. Feel free to click on the links for a more in-depth tutorial when available.
Scrapbook Name Banner
Using scrapbook paper, a printer, and paper cutter, I made a DIY pennant name banner for the dedication. This was a really easy DIY project, and the floral scrapbook paper matched the decor well.
Wooden Cross
I also made a wooden initial scrap fabric cross with pieces of fabric that matched my daughter’s baby quilt. The letter on the inside is painted the perfect shade of salmon to match her room as well! I love reusing decoration ideas!
Baby Dedication Picture Ideas With Bible
Quite possibly my favorite of all the baby dedication decorations at our party was the line of cute Bible-themed pictures. When my daughter was less than 2 weeks old, we had the foresight to take pictures of her lying on her illustrated Bible.
In 2 of the pictures, she’s laying on two of our favorite baby dedication verses! I’m not a good photographer at all (I wish I had more skills, but you know, only so much free time in a day!) I’m still so glad I did these pictures, though!
The Bible that we bought was this illustrated Bible. It is AWESOME and so cute! I cannot wait until our daughter is older and will truly appreciate how gorgeous the inside is.
Here are the individual pictures we took of our daughter:
The verse for this baby Bible pictures is Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
And the life verse for this next picture is 1 Samuel 1:27-28: “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” Oh my gosh, isn’t her wrinkly little face just too cute?
I strung all the pictures up on an elastic line and added one on top of an easel I got from Hobby Lobby. Love, love, love!
Baby Dedication Party Activities
I always like to have activities for guests to do at parties so there’s less awkward milling around at first while I’m taking food out of the fridge. These activities usually involve creating some sort of memorabilia keepsake for the party girl!
Guests Sign and Highlight Their Favorite Baby Dedication Verse
For both of my girls’ dedication parties, I had guests sign a journaling Bible with their favorite verses. If you see my older daughter’s baby dedication post, I have a huge list of baby dedication verse ideas written out in a nice image to give your guests ideas of good verses to sign! Here’s a closeup of the image I printed out to instruct guests this time around.
Again, this is the Bible: NIV, Beautiful Word Bible, Updated Edition. There are a ton of options of colors for the outsides, but inside they are all pretty similar in decor. For my older daughter’s dedication, she got a maroon and tan floral one.
This is a picture of the verse my grandmother signed for my older daughter’s dedication. I love how cute her message is!
Baby Dedication Bookmarks: “For This Child I Have Prayed” – Free Printable
One unique thing for my daughter this time around was bookmarks. I had seen several designs around Pinterest and Etsy for baptisms, dedications, and baby showers and decided it would be fun to make my own bookmarks. I like verse 1 Samuel 1:27 (as you can tell from the Bible pictures above!) As such, I wanted to have everyone write a prayer or prayers for Evelyn. Here’s what the bookmarks looked like blank when I set them out on the table.
They are printed on simple white cardstock. The bow on top, I tied and glued myself to make them a little girlier!
Here’s what the bookmarks looked like in a little better lighting and with the prayer filled out for baby girl. See, I told you I wasn’t a great photographer!
If you want to grab a copy of the template, you can download it here for free!
And don’t want any confusion, so I want to say these are for personal use only. And because attribution is cool even when not necessary, my watercolor floral image came from Pixabay.
Baby Dedication Party Favors: Chocolate Roses
I made chocolate roses using Hershey’s kisses, pink cellophane, floral tape, green wire, pink twine, and some fake leaves. There are hundreds of tutorials online, so here’s a good one to follow if you want to make some for yourself.
I also printed a tag that said “Thanks for celebrating with us!” As you can tell, I loved the floral watercolor image and used it over and over! My daughter’s middle name is Rose, so that’s one of the reasons I made chocolate roses. Overall, these went over so well with everyone as a party favor!
And that’s it for my daughter’s baby dedication party. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and get some great dedication ideas for yourself!
If you loved this party idea, here are some other parties that have gone just swimmingly in the past for my family:
- Princess First Birthday Party
- Bookworm Book-Themed Birthday Party Food Ideas + Book-Themed Party Favors
- Minnie Mouse Campfire Cones Third Birthday Party
- “30 and Still Cool” Snow-Cone Party
