How you welcome a new family member is always a personal matter that should reflect your values and beliefs. Both civil baptisms and naming ceremonies are symbolic acts without legal value and serve to introduce the new child to family and friends.
A christening ceremony is a non-religious celebration to welcome a child in a personal and meaningful way. The ceremony focuses on your child and the family and friends around them, and parents will name their child in front of the friends and family you have invited to be part of this special day.
The format of this ceremony is flexible and the content and celebration of each ceremony is individual and unique. We can help you create a ceremony around poetic readings and symbolic acts that have significance to your family and help shape and occasion the big day.
The ceremony does not introduce the child to a belief system, but rather recognizes the child’s freedom to form his or her own opinion and make his or her own decisions as he or she grows up. Parents can make promises to their child and godparents can also be invited to make their own promises.
How long does a civil baptism last?
The duration of this type of ceremony is usually around half an hour: there may be variations in time if there are several guests who want to speak, if the godparents also want to say something, if there is a symbolic act such as planting a tree, if live music is included…
The civil christening ceremony can be held wherever you want: at home, in the garden, on the beach, in the park, in a restaurant if there is a banquet afterwards. You can make it coincide with your child’s birthday or with a civil wedding, the celebration will be double.
Are they baptisms like Christian baptisms?
Christian baptisms are religious services celebrated in Christian churches and conducted by priests or vicars. A baptism is a religious ceremony that welcomes someone into the Christian church through baptism. Baptism consists of sprinkling or pouring water on the baby’s head and the act is the initiation into the church, whereby the baby is removed from “original sin” (brought into the world when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden).
Origin of civil baptisms
Republican baptism dates back to 1792 in France, when the registers of births, marriages and deaths passed from the Catholic Church (judged too monarchical) to the French state.
Civil baptisms were introduced two years later, in 1794. Although they fell into disuse, the alcaledes revived them in the 1930s, and their popularity has continued to grow since the turn of the century.
These non-religious ceremonies celebrate the arrival of a new baby and welcome him/her as a member of the French Republic.
