And it’s amazing, and with anything artistic, motorcycle, or quality configured endeavor there’s a story. Here’s the heartfelt story behind the company Une Belle Vie:
Early in 2009, entrepreneur Mike Jamali was touched by a story on the national news about the growing need for custom, artistic urns. He and his son, 21-year-old Eric, began research on a business to offer beautiful, one-of-a-kind urns, but time constraints ultimately put their project on hold.
In June 2009, Eric was tragically killed in an accident.
During an emotional and stressful time, Mike and his wife Melody Jamali felt rushed and pressured to buy an urn and literally picked one off of the funeral home wall. It was overpriced, uninspiring and didn’t reflect the life or spirit of their son.
In the weeks following Eric’s death, this business idea became a personal passion for the Jamali family.
On Eric’s birthday, February 25, 2010, Une Belle Vie officially launched online.
According to CANA (Cremation Association of North America), by 2025 there will be 1,409,490 cremations out of 3,235,000 deaths – approx 44%.
Laws on cremation vary by state, but in general, there are no laws that govern the actual vessel. Spreading ashes on public property, including inland bodies of water and mountains, is against the law. Some state parks will allow the scattering of ashes with a permit. On private property, approval in writing should be requested prior to spreading ashes.
Source for religious and ethnic beliefs on cremation: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Cremation
Religions that primarily cremate: Scientology, Unitarianism, Indian religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism).
Religions that forbid cremation: Islam, The Baha’i Faith, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches (Christian) except when circumstances warrant or demand it, such as during cases of epidemics, wherein cremation would be in the interest of public health, through the prevention of the additional spread of disease.
Melody Jamali’s the President of Une Belle Vie Memorial Urns, was kind enough to help us through the journey of building a completely custom URN.
“At Une Belle Vie, we specialize in unique, fully custom cremation urns,” said Melody. “When we receive custom requests, we do everything we can to create the urn our customer envisions. For the motorcycle urns, we have been fortunate to find a woodworker who can create beautiful representations of some of the best motorcycle engines ever made.”
“We use artists from all over the United States to create our custom urns. We find them via industry groups/publications, online and by word of mouth.”
Melody explained the process for ordering and ultimately building an old school URN.
“When we receive a request, we request photos from the customers,” Melody explained. “Our wood carver then provides a basic sketch that the customer approves and carving moves forward from there. We need to ensure that the size will be large enough to fit the cremains of 1-2 people, depending on what the customer wants. For this one, they wanted it large enough for two people.
“We send production photos from time to time so the customer has a chance to be part of the process. For these two, they are lining up the initial carvings with the basic sketch.
“In this photo, the artists is lining up components of the urn with the initial photograph of the motorcycle engine. Our artists are very detailed in how they create even inch of every urn.
“This shows how the urn is coming together. In order to make it an urn, there needs to be hollow areas for the cremains. Also, special attention is given to the design and carving.
“The urn, pre-stain is sent to the customer to ensure that it is what they envisioned.
“ The final product, a custom wood motorcycle urn that will fit two riders for eternity.”
I asked Melody about ordering URNs and whether they have a stock of them.
“Since our urns are fully custom and made to customer specification, they are generally not ‘in stock.’ As they are custom made to order, the customer can provide us with a different motor design, provide size parameters (i.e., will the urn be for one rider or two) and discuss staining options. If you can imagine it, we can likely build it. We also offer custom painting, engraving and sculpture work for urns.”
The Belle Vie company can virtually make any type of URN for their customers.
“Une Belle Vie is an online retailer providing traditional, artistic and custom urns, with its primary focus on artistic and custom vessels,” Melody said. “We will sometimes design custom urns on our own and offer them through our Belle Vie Exclusives line or create them based on customer requests. As for what’s next, we anticipate more awesome custom urns that defy what people think a cremation urns would look like.”
Sort of amazing, and their company appears to be a class act. Make the most of everyday but if you need one of these bastards, now you know.
–Bandit
