Heidi Fleischli

Open the homepage of freie-traurednerin.ch and the browser tab reads "HEIDI FLEISCHLI | Freie Traurednerin aus Luzern." No brand name, no wordplay, no agency shingle standing between a couple and the person doing the work, just her own name and what she does. That plainness runs through the rest of the site too: the Impressum lists one owner, one author, one creator, Heidi Fleischli, at one address. That is a real distinction in this catalog, where several listings run under a company name or a shared marketplace profile rather than a personal domain.

The site backs the claim up with proof of an actual finished wedding, not just a promise. Its one homepage testimonial names both a couple and a venue: Alain and Tamara, married in a "Freie Trauung im Rosengarten, Hünenberg Zug," the rose garden in Hünenberg, canton Zug. They write that she moved them deeply with a ceremony they call charming and witty, delivered with love, understanding and words that made an already big day feel bigger. It is the only testimonial anywhere on the site that names the couple. 3 more, tucked into the pricing page rather than the homepage, name only the venue: a countryside inn (Landgasthof Hasenstrick in Stäfa, canton Zurich), an event space (Eventlokal Startklar in Emmen, canton Lucerne) and a rooftop bar in Lucerne, where one family booked both a wedding ceremony and a child-welcome ceremony from her for the same day.

Who is behind the name

Fleischli is 44 and lives, in her own words, on "einem idyllischen Bauernhof," an idyllic farm, in Hildisrieden, canton Lucerne. She is the mother of 3 children, which she says has trained her to move through life with an alert eye. Her own summary of what she brings to a ceremony runs to 3 strengths: listening with the soul, writing with the head and speaking from the heart. She credits an unusual mix of prior work for that combination. Her About page names her as "zertifizierte Traurednerin, erfahrener Kommunikationsprofi und langjährige Hochzeitsfotografin," a certified celebrant, an experienced communications professional and a longtime wedding photographer, and a certificate badge in the site's footer links out to zeremonien-akademie.ch, backing the certification claim with a named training body rather than leaving it as an unattributed adjective.

The photography credential is not a throwaway line on a bio page. Her own recommended-links page lists "zweinzigartig Fotografie, Heidi Fleischli, Hildisrieden" under wedding photographers, with a note in her own voice: "Ja, das bin ich" (yes, that's me), followed by a plain admission that she cannot offer both services on the same day, though she is glad to photograph a couple sometime after their ceremony. That is a specific, checkable fact about how her 2 businesses relate to each other, not marketing colour. Elsewhere she describes herself as spontaneous, funny and honest, with a good feel for the moment, a register that matches the testimonials quoted above rather than reading like a stock adjective.

5 stages from a free first meeting to the toast afterward

Her own Ratgeber (guide) page lays out the path from first contact to wedding day in 5 numbered stages, more procedural detail than most celebrant sites on this tenant publish. Stage 1 is a free, non-binding Kennenlernen, a get-to-know-you conversation where the couple describes what they want and she explains how the work would run. Stage 2 is the detailed planning meeting, held at the latest 2 months before the day; she sends a questionnaire ahead of it so the couple can prepare notes rather than answer cold. Stage 3 is her own writing and preparation behind the scenes, where she may contact other people close to the couple for material and speaks with the Tätschmeister (the day's toastmaster) and, where relevant, the musicians. Stage 4 is the wedding day itself: she arrives roughly 90 minutes early to set up and coordinate with everyone involved, the ceremony itself runs about 40 minutes, and she likes to stay and toast the couple afterward. Stage 5 is the follow-up: she stays reachable once the wedding is over and welcomes photos or a testimonial a couple is willing to let her use.

A separate FAQ entry on the same page gives the ceremony's own running order: entrance, greeting and introduction, the couple's love story, a ritual with room for guests to take part, a declaration of love, the vows and the "yes," then the farewell and exit, all set to music of the couple's choosing. On timing, 2 different parts of the site agree with each other: one FAQ answer puts a freie Trauung at 40 to 45 minutes including the couple's entrance and exit with music, and the process page's own account of the wedding day matches it at "rund 40 Minuten." Ceremonies happen "am Ort eurer Wahl," at a location the couple chooses; a page on where a ceremony can happen adds a practical note rather than a sales pitch, that a genuinely remote spot is romantic but adds work, and that having an experienced local host or organiser nearby usually makes power, water, furniture, toilets and catering easier to arrange.

The same Ratgeber page names 7 specific rituals a couple can pick from, running from a wedding candle through a time capsule, a ring-warming (the rings pass through the guests' rows on a ribbon before the ceremony), a handfasting or Celtic knot ceremony binding the couple's hands, a fire ritual burning guests' written wishes, a planting ritual and a cornerstone ritual pressing the couple's handprints into clay or plaster. The list is numbered 1 through 8 but skips number 2 on the live page, a minor, genuine slip rather than anything tidied up for this write-up. She closes the list by offering to build an entirely different ritual from scratch if none of the named ones fit.

What CHF 2350 covers, and what travel adds

Her pricing page states a base price of CHF 2350 for a Freie Trauung and the same CHF 2350 for a vow renewal (Ehegelübde erneuern), each covering the free first meeting, the detailed planning session, any interviews with people close to the couple, writing the ceremony text and delivering it at the couple's chosen location, including coordination with the Tätschmeister and musicians. Travel for the day itself is priced separately: 25 km from Hildisrieden is included, and every kilometre past that costs 70 Rappen. A Willkommensfeier, the child-welcome ceremony, is CHF 950 on the same travel terms; an Abschiedsrede, a farewell or eulogy speech for a funeral, is CHF 900. For a couple who want only the words rather than the whole ceremony, she also sells a stand-alone Hochzeitsrede, a wedding speech written for someone else to deliver, "ab CHF 450," which buys a phone consultation, an interview by phone or email, a roughly one-page speech and one round of corrections. Anything else, a birthday, a company event, a differently shaped occasion, is priced "auf Anfrage," on request.

Her own FAQ answers the legal question, plainly

This tenant's readers need the civil-versus-symbolic distinction stated accurately, and Fleischli's site is unusually direct about it. Her Ratgeber page carries an FAQ entry titled "Sind wir nach einer freien Trauung gesetzlich ein Ehepaar?" (are we legally a married couple after a freie Trauung), and her answer is one word: "Nein." She explains why in her own terms: as a freie Zeremoniarin she is neither a Standesbeamtin (civil registrar) nor a Pfarrerin (pastor). In Switzerland a marriage becomes legally binding only when a civil registrar performs it, somewhere the canton has approved, and her own answer states plainly that most of her couples hold their freie Trauung after that civil registry wedding, in place of a church ceremony rather than instead of the legal one. Nowhere on the site does she claim to perform, or stand in for, the legal act itself. A separate page, "Love is Love!", states that she treats a request from 2 women, 2 men, or a woman and a man exactly alike; nothing on it claims anything about legal authority either way.

German throughout, and 4 colleagues to call if she's already booked

Every page on freie-traurednerin.ch is in German, with no English toggle, no /en/ path and no English text found anywhere on the site, including the Kontakt and Impressum pages. A couple who need the planning meetings, the questionnaire and the ceremony itself in English should expect to arrange that directly rather than assume it. Her Link-Empfehlungen page names 4 fellow freie Trauredner*innen, Rahel, Eli, Karin and Claudia, each with a short line about where they are based and what they are like to work with, offered explicitly as a fallback "falls ich an eurem Tag ausgebucht bin," in case she is already booked on the couple's date. The same page recommends a florist (Yvonne Fleischli, no relation, same village), a bridal boutique in Geuensee, a hairdresser in Hildisrieden and a face-painting business for guests' children, all named rather than left generic.

What comes through across the site is someone running this as a small, personal, well-documented practice rather than a brand: one owner, one address, a 5-stage process written out in full, published prices for most of her services, and a direct, correctly framed answer to the one legal question a foreign couple is most likely to ask before booking anyone. The gaps are real and worth knowing before writing: no English anywhere, only one testimonial with a couple's actual names, and no stated year for when she started. None of that should rule her out for a couple happy to work in German. It is a short, specific list of things to ask about directly, not a reason to look elsewhere.