Christening — Valga

A christening gathers three generations in one room, often for the first time. That span shows in everything: the couple holding an infant, grandparents who flew in that morning, cousins who have not seen each other since the last family occasion. The room has to work for all of them at once.

Valga venues tend to be smaller and more domestic in feel than the ballrooms farther north, which suits the occasion. The risk is crowding—when forty people try to move through a single doorway between the ceremony and the meal, or when the dessert appears and there is nowhere left to stand. We stage the room so the flow never stalls.