Nathalavie

Nathalavie is the celebration practice of Nathalie Gobat, a célébrante laïque (secular celebrant) based in Villars-sur-Glâne. She writes and leads non-religious ceremonies for happy occasions: weddings and symbolic unions, vow renewals, the arrival of a child, and other milestones she calls "Cap de vie". She works in French, her mother tongue, and says she does so in Switzerland or abroad. Her funeral and bereavement work, which came first, runs under a separate name and website.

What she offers couples

The wedding service is described on her site as "cérémonie de mariage, union symbolique ou renouvellement de vœux laïques pour tous les couples qui s'aiment et qui désirent s'engager sur leur chemin de vie devant témoins" (a wedding ceremony, symbolic union or secular vow renewal for all couples who love each other and wish to commit to their path through life before witnesses). The phrasing is inclusive by design: "tous les couples" (all couples), with no condition attached.

Alongside weddings she lists 2 other services. "Bienvenue à la Vie" is a symbolic celebration for the birth or adoption of a child (the menu calls these baptêmes laïques, secular naming ceremonies). "Cap de vie" covers any other significant moment in life, which she says can be "marqué d'une pierre blanche" (marked with a white stone, the French idiom for a day to remember), with her creativity and her pen to help. On her About page she gives examples: birthdays and anniversaries, retirement, and even a "démariage", a ceremony to mark the end of a marriage.

The home page invites anyone with a happy event they want to ritualize to get in touch with questions or particular wishes. The menu also includes a "Réalisations" section (past work), which a couple can look through before writing to her.

Her background

The About page, titled "Ne jamais dire jamais" (never say never), is unusually candid. Nathalie writes that she began training more than 10 years ago in end-of-life care, death and bereavement, and that since 2018 she has worked independently supporting the bereaved and leading secular funerals. She says she loves that work.

She also writes that she had always said weddings did not interest her much, that they belonged to a world of "Bisounours" (Care Bears, meaning a naively rosy world), and that she doubted she could be very objective given her own experience of marriage.

Then 2020 changed her view. She writes that she was diagnosed with cancer that year, and that during her first stay in hospital a young woman called to ask whether she would lead her wedding, because she had been touched by the funeral Nathalie had led for her grandfather. Nathalie asked for a few days to think it over while she learned how the illness was progressing, and then said yes. She was operated on and treated, and writes that she is now cured.

That period led her to widen her secular services to include weddings, welcoming a child, and help writing texts for birthdays and other anniversaries. She chose to keep the world of mourning and the celebration of life on separate websites, and points readers who want to know her better to her other site, rituelsetdeuil.ch.

For a couple, the practical takeaway is experience at the lectern: she has been leading ceremonies for grieving families since 2018, which is a demanding school for speaking in front of a room full of emotion.

How she thinks about ritual

The home page is built around the idea that rituals matter. Its headline reads: "Le cours de notre vie est une succession de passages que nous avons besoin de ritualiser…" (the course of our life is a succession of passages we need to ritualize).

She quotes a passage from Amin Maalouf's book Les Identités meurtrières about a world in which the need for spirituality would be separate from the need to belong to a religious community. She then reproduces an extract from a 2016 article in the newspaper Le Temps, in which Philippe Gonzalez, a sociologist at the University of Lausanne, distinguishes a habit (something done without thinking) from a ritual (a habit that focuses attention). The article notes that half a century ago, Christianity supplied the rituals for life's big passages in Switzerland, while today "les gens se fabriquent leurs propres rituels" (people make their own rituals). A short note on the etymology of "rite" from the Latin ritus, meaning prescribed order, rounds it off.

This matters to a couple mainly as a signal of approach. The site presents a secular ceremony as a considered ritual, not as an improvised speech.

Contact

The site gives full contact details:

• Phone 079 254 78 80
• Email info@nathalavie.ch
• Route de Sainte-Apolline 23, 1752 Villars-sur-Glâne

There is also a "Prendre contact" (get in touch) button on every page.

What the site does not settle

• Language. She states clearly that she works in her mother tongue, French. The site does not mention English, German or any other language, so a couple who needs part of the ceremony in another language should raise it at the start.
• Price. The site publishes no fees or packages.
• Process. There is no description of how many meetings she holds, whether they can be done by video, or how far ahead to book.
• Travel. She says she works in Switzerland or abroad, but gives no travel area or costs.
• Legal side. The pages do not discuss how her ceremony relates to a civil wedding; that is a question to put to her directly.

Who it suits

Nathalavie suits French-speaking couples, including couples living in or coming to French-speaking Switzerland, who want a thoughtful secular ceremony from a celebrant with long experience of leading emotional occasions. Her openness to all couples and to unusual occasions, from vow renewals to a démariage, suggests someone comfortable with requests that do not fit a template. Because she also leads Bienvenue à la Vie ceremonies for newborn and adopted children, a couple who likes working with her can come back to the same celebrant when the family grows.

It is not the right match for a couple who needs an English or bilingual ceremony, since she says she works in French. And couples who want published prices or a step-by-step process on the website will have to call or write to get them.