Anita Meyer

Anita Meyer's site does something few Swiss celebrant pages volunteer: it names the boats. Book a Schiffstrauung with her and the ceremony happens either on the MS Titan on the Zugersee or on a barge called Nauen-Max on the Vierwaldstättersee, both chartered through her own company, ZeremonienRednerin GmbH, at CHF 3150 for the Titan and CHF 3000 for Nauen-Max. The sailing runs about 2.5 hours; partway across the lake the boat stops, the ceremony happens on deck for about 30 minutes, and there's time left afterward to celebrate with guests or fit in an apéro, which costs extra and gets arranged separately with the crew or caterer, or brought along yourself. Full prepayment is required, and if rain or a storm rules the boat out, she refunds the boat cost and moves the ceremony to a replacement spot the couple chooses instead. It's the most concrete offer on the whole site, and a genuine differentiator: not every celebrant in this catalog has a standing arrangement with 2 named boats on 2 named lakes.

Meyer works out of Menznau, a village in canton Luzern, though the free first conversation happens in Schötz or Wolhusen rather than at her own address. Before this, by her own account, she wasn't a theologian, a singer or an actress. She ran a cosmetics studio for 30 years, working alongside it as a bridal makeup artist, an event toastmaster (Tätschmeister) and a hobby photographer for brides, and for 5 years she also sold bridal fashion part time. She trained formally as a wedding planner, then added a second qualification, an EU-norm-accredited course as a funeral and grief speaker, specifically so she could work outside Switzerland too; her site says she now also leads ash-scattering ceremonies at sea and natural burials under an olive tree in Spain, run through a separate site, trauer-zeremonie.ch. She was born in 1970, is in her second marriage to a farmer, and describes herself as the mother of a son and, in her words, a Sternenkind, the Swiss German term for a baby lost to miscarriage or stillbirth. That loss, she writes, is part of why grief work, including Sternenkind and child-loss ceremonies, sits alongside weddings in her practice.

A contract that doubles as the invoice

Past the first meeting, her process is laid out in more procedural detail than most celebrants publish. After a roughly one-hour, no-obligation first conversation, she sends an "Offerten-Vertrag," a combined quote and contract that stays valid for 10 days, during which your date is held without commitment. Sign and pay, and the date is booked. You then get a long questionnaire, and, with your permission, she emails your parents and witnesses directly for anecdotes to weave into the ceremony, "never anything embarrassing," her site promises. 6 to 8 weeks out there's a second meeting, running 2 to 4 hours, on a weekday, at your home or your venue; afterward she writes the ceremony script and designs its title page, then sends the whole thing to you in writing so you or a planner can check it against everything else on the day. She arrives at least 1 hour early on the day itself to brief the caterer, musicians and photographer and to set up, and she'll often stay for a quick toast at the apéro afterward. Through the run-up she's reachable by phone, mail or WhatsApp during normal business hours, replying within 24 hours except Sundays.

Couples marrying at her second base, on Spain's Costa Blanca, get a parallel process, run mostly over Teams or Skype: the same free first call, the same 10-day contract window, then a planning session of at least 2 hours some 6 weeks out, done in person if it falls between November and the end of April, the months she says she spends mostly on site there anyway, planning that season's Swiss weddings from Spain in the meantime.

Four formats, one flat fee each, and one price that disagrees with itself

A full Freie Trauung runs 40 to 60 minutes and starts at CHF 2'250. A shorter version, called "Freie Trauung kurz" or "light," runs 15 to 20 minutes for CHF 1050, aimed at elopements, garden-party surprises, or couples who married at the registry office years back and never held a bigger ceremony afterward. A vow renewal follows the same short format for the same CHF 1050. Same-sex ceremonies get no separate treatment: her Ehe für alle page states plainly that a Freie Trauung has always worked for these couples and that marriage equality is now Swiss law, and she prices and plans it exactly like any other Freie Trauung. All four are built from what she describes as a flat package: the meetings, a ritual object worth up to CHF 30 included as a keepsake, every phone call and email with your witnesses and vendors, and 100 km of travel. A complete wedding, she says, takes her between 25 and 35 hours of work in total. Past 100 km it's CHF 1 per kilometre, and a PA system for indoor or outdoor sound costs extra too, though her site prices that add-on two different ways: CHF 200 on the Freie Trauung page, CHF 150 on the Kosten page. That's a real discrepancy sitting on the live site rather than a one-off typo, so confirm which figure applies before you book. Keepsakes are itemised separately at CHF 100 each: a printed marriage certificate, the ceremony speech itself, or a baptism certificate with a custom design.

German throughout, with one unexplained exception

Every page on zeremonienrednerin.ch is in German. There's no English toggle, no /en/ path, nothing translated. The one crack in that is a single line on the Kosten page: CHF 250 to have the ceremony translated and delivered in a foreign language, "Fremdsprache," without saying which one. The only foreign-language text anywhere on the site is a single Spanish sentence signing off her Costa Blanca planning page. Nothing claims English specifically, spoken or written, so a couple who need the ceremony delivered in English should ask directly rather than assume the CHF 250 line covers it.

What the site does not say about the legal side

Her site never mentions a civil registrar anywhere, and it never uses the words Zivilstandsamt or Standesamt. In Switzerland a marriage becomes legally binding only when a civil registrar performs it, somewhere the canton has approved; nothing on Meyer's site claims that's what happens at one of her ceremonies, so treat what she leads as the symbolic half of the day and arrange the legal act separately, unless she tells you directly that something different applies to your booking.

Speeches written for other people's ceremonies

Ceremonies aren't the only product. A separate "Ghostwriter" service has her write speeches on commission for a wedding, a funeral, a vow renewal or someone else's toast, in three lengths: Basic, CHF 250 for 150 to 300 words delivered within 4 days; Standard, CHF 450 for 350 to 500 words within 5 days; and Premium, CHF 780 for 800 to 1000 words, with a 30-minute Zoom briefing and a chosen ritual and songs worked in, delivered within 10 days. A 48-hour express turnaround adds CHF 240 to any tier, and a stand-alone coaching session, reviewing a speech you wrote yourself, costs CHF 180. She backs the offer with a claim of having personally led over 200 ceremonies, plus, her site says, specific experience with Sternenkind and child-loss ceremonies and with suicide-related farewells, drawn from the funeral side of her practice.

A nationwide address book, and a fallback if she's booked

Meyer says she has led ceremonies across the whole of Switzerland, and her site backs that up with named vendors rather than a vague promise: DJ Pascal Füllemann and Partyband Bandscape for music, Wunschgebäck for cakes, Minder Mode for bridal fashion. Ask about a date and she holds it for 10 days while you decide; if she's already booked, she says she'll pass your contact to her professional association if you ask her to, rather than leaving you to start over alone.

What you get, in the end, is a documented, quote-then-contract process from someone whose working life before this touched weddings from three different angles, bridal makeup, event coordination and bridal fashion, rather than one, plus two things few Swiss celebrants publish outright: a scenic ceremony with a weather refund built in, and a genuinely short format for couples who don't want a production. Go in knowing the gaps: nothing on legal status, one unresolved number on the sound system, and a foreign-language option that names a fee but not a language. None of that is disqualifying. It's a short list of things worth asking about before you sign the 10-day offer.