Votre Cérémonie

Céline, Karina and Edith live around Sierre in the Valais and chose to work as a team, and one of them, Karina Gjerpe, is bilingual in French and English. Together they are Votre Cérémonie, a collective of independent celebrants who answer a wide range of requests, support one another in writing ceremonies and keep training together. For a wedding in French-speaking Switzerland where one partner or some of your guests speak English, the collective is a solid choice, and they come to you: the radius they state is Suisse Romande, where they travel gladly. The site is written in French.

Three celebrants who chose to work as a team

The three are complementary but each has her own sensibility, and being in tune with the couple matters to them.

The collective creates and leads a ceremony made to measure, built on the couple's values, spirituality and symbols, outside religious institutions. The wedding ceremony can include music, personal rituals, vows, an exchange of rings and traditional passages or not, in a place you choose with the people you want around you. With an independent celebrant you can include your own spirituality, the ceremony respects cultural and spiritual diversity, it can be as playful or as traditional as you like, and a child, friends or a dog can take part. The dog on that list tells you how relaxed the format can be. They also have plenty of good addresses and ideas to suggest, which helps a couple choosing a place from far away.

Karina Gjerpe, the English-speaking voice

Karina was born in Switzerland to an English mother and a Norwegian father. Earlier lives include circus artist, translator, festival creator and seller of ethical clothing, and her family is large and multicultural. She wants to know what makes a couple laugh and cry. A couple who want a bilingual or English ceremony can raise it with her in their first message, and a translator with an English mother and a Norwegian father brings the right ear to a mixed-language wedding.

Céline Genoud, from event work to ceremonies

Céline trained in tourism, with a focus on travel and events, and opened her own business in 2015. She is from the Val d'Anniviers and lives in Sierre, where her agency, 360° voyages et events, has its office in the town center at Rue du Bourg 17. In 2016 she attended her first secular wedding ceremony as a guest, knew she wanted to do this work, and then followed a one-year training in Geneva with Jelte Gordon-Lenox.

A project like this needs to start several months ahead. A first meeting lets you describe what you want and hear what she can offer, and if you go on together you will meet three to four times in total. For a couple who must fit those meetings around travel, a stated number of meetings is useful to know in advance, and a first meeting by video is a sensible thing to ask about.

Edith Germanier, a social worker's second career

Edith grew up in Lower Valais, the daughter of mountain farmers. She trained as a social worker and worked in that profession for more than twenty years in the Sierre district, then joined her husband in wine, handling customer welcome, administration and event organization. Recently retired, she trained as an independent celebrant with Cérémoniae, for funerals, weddings, welcoming a child and other ceremonies. She belongs to two associations of French-speaking celebrants, ACOR and Célébrys. She lives in Lens and is shaped by values of service and empathy, and by being a mother and grandmother. That long record in social work is a reassuring background in the person at the front of a family occasion.

Funerals and child welcomes too

The collective also leads funerals and child-welcome ceremonies, where parents can name godparents of the heart for their child. Funerals are framed as a tribute built around the person who has died. A couple who want one team for a wedding and later family occasions will find that range here, and the vineyard and mountain roots of two of the three give them a real feel for the region you may be marrying in.

A rates page and an address for each celebrant

Fees sit on a separate rates page, "Nos tarifs", and are not quoted here. Each celebrant has her own email address, and there is a shared address for general questions; a couple writing from abroad can send a first message about language, date and venue.

A Valais team for French-speaking Switzerland

Marrying in the Valais or anywhere in French-speaking Switzerland, with a personal, non-religious ceremony in mind and a French-speaking team you feel at home with? This collective fits, with English available through Karina.