Simone Gori

Every page on lovelywords.ch, the practice trading as lovely words, that talks price, process or English-language service is written in the first person, and the person writing it names herself: Simone Gori. Her fee page opens with "aus meiner Feder", from my own pen. Her generic FAQ still slides mid-answer into her own habit, "ich arbeite nach der Devise short but sweet." The testimonials page defaults to letters addressed to her, "Liebe Simone", not to the team behind her. And when the site points a couple toward a cheaper option, it doesn't send them to a rival celebrant, it sends them to her own 4 colleagues, priced by her, working, in her words, "nach meinem Konzept," to my concept. None of that shows up anywhere on the site as an org chart or a founder's title. It shows up as a pattern: whichever page a visitor lands on, hers is the voice setting the terms.

She's married with 2 sons, lives in the Zurich agglomeration, and was born in 1982. Her own account of how she got here is plain about the lack of a plan: after a journalism and communications degree and her own wedding, she "eher zufällig in die Hochzeitsbubble gestolpert" (stumbled into the wedding bubble more or less by accident), and calls that accident the best thing that ever happened to her. She now works full time as a celebrant and copywriter, "Traurednerin" and "Texterin" in the same job title, and the fee page leans on that second skill directly: she describes writing a couple's ceremony speech "nach journalistischen Grundsätzen nur mit mehr Gefühl", by journalistic principles, just with more feeling.

What a booking with her actually walks through

Her own process page lays out 8 numbered steps rather than a vague promise of personalisation. Contact comes first, then a free, non-binding get-to-know meeting of about an hour. If both sides say yes, she sends a contract that she describes as 2 pages of fine print, plus an invoice for a deposit, "im Normalfall 50% des Totalbetrags", normally 50% of the total. The substantive planning meeting happens 4 to 6 months before the wedding, runs 2 to 3 hours, and happens at the couple's own home rather than her office, deliberately, so they can talk through their story from the sofa. She arrives roughly 2 hours before the ceremony itself to set up and settle any last details with musicians or witnesses, and the ceremony runs 30 to 45 minutes, a range that shows up again on 2 other pages of the site, so it's clearly the length she actually holds to rather than a one-off figure. She brings her own wireless sound system, amplifier, headset and handheld microphone, and mentions setting it up herself despite its 16 kilos. For vows, she sends a writing guide ahead of time and hands couples 2 hand-calligraphed cards on the day, "damit keiner mit einem Fresszettel herumwedeln muss", so nobody's waving a scrap of paper around.

Her flat fee for that whole package is CHF 2800, a figure that appears, unusually, in exactly the same amount on both her German fee page and her separate English-language page, which is a real point in her favour: a couple reading only the English page isn't getting a different, softer number than the German original. That fee is only guaranteed for bookings made before the end of March 2026, per her own page, so it's worth confirming it still stands by the time a couple reads this. For a smaller budget, her own site names her 4 colleagues, Debby, Romina, Fabienne and Georgina, at CHF 2500 for the same kind of ceremony, plus travel costs for a location further out, working, she says, to her own concept and standards. Her stated experience carries one unresolved wrinkle worth flagging rather than picking a side on: her personal profile page claims "über 220 Hochzeiten und Elopements", over 220 weddings and elopements, while her fee page, in the same first-person voice, states "10 Jahre und 300 Trauungen Erfahrung", 10 years and 300 ceremonies. Both numbers are hers, on 2 different pages of her own site, and this listing reports both rather than quietly rounding to one.

What her site says about the law, twice, in 2 languages

Neither her process page nor her fee page mentions a civil registrar or a Zivilstandsamt at all, which is ordinary for a freie Trauung site. Her site's own FAQ, though, states the legal position directly rather than leaving it silent: asked "Ist eine freie Trauung rechtlich gültig?", is a free ceremony legally valid, it answers "Nein, die freie Trauung hat in der Schweiz keine rechtliche Wirkung. Die standesamtliche Trauung ist weiterhin erforderlich", no, a free ceremony carries no legal effect, and adds that the civil-registry appointment is still required, pointing couples to their local Zivilstandsamt for the details. That lines up with how the law actually works: a Swiss marriage becomes legally binding only once a civil registrar performs it, somewhere the couple's canton has approved for that purpose, and nothing on Gori's own pages claims she or a freie Trauung stands in for that appointment. Her English page puts the same point to an English reader in her own words: "Symbolic ceremonies aren't legally binding, you won't be married before the law if you choose to do one. Legal marriages are only possible in Swiss registry offices." She never suggests otherwise, and nothing here should be read as her marrying anyone: she writes and holds the ceremony, and a couple planning to marry legally in Switzerland still needs to arrange that separately, with a registrar somewhere their canton has approved.

The one page written in English, not translated into it

Most of lovelywords.ch is German only, but "Elopements and symbolic weddings in Switzerland" is a genuine, dedicated English page, written in her own voice from the opening line, not a thin translation stub bolted onto a German site. It carries its own version of everything: the same CHF 2800 flat rate, a stated guest range of 11 to 150 people for a full ceremony, the same 30 to 45 minute length, and bookability on any weekday through the year. It also carries 8 named testimonials, all marked 5 out of 5, all clearly from English-speaking couples: Courtney & Richard, Olga & John, Haley & Cameron, Jolene & Paul, Nicole & Kris, Jess & Matt, Robin & Peter, and Caelin & Jared. Jess & Matt's own words are specific about why they picked her: "My husband and I are English and Australian (although based in Switzerland) and so really wanted a native English speaker as there is a lot of nuance and humour that we wanted to bring in to our ceremony." Olga & John credit her with helping find a DJ and classical musicians while they planned "from halfway across the world." One of those same quotes, from Robin & Peter, also appears verbatim on the site's general testimonials page, which is a small but real sign that the English page isn't marketing copy written apart from the rest of the site.

Set against that, the gap is worth naming plainly: the site's main navigation carries a "Kontakt EN" label, but the wider site has no working English mirror behind it. The generic /en/ path loops back on itself rather than loading a translated homepage, and there's no English version of her own profile page, her process page or her fee page. What exists is one page, thoroughly built for an English-speaking couple, sitting inside a site that otherwise runs entirely in German.

A second company, and one association named once

Two facts on her own pages don't show up on any sibling celebrant's site in this catalog. On the English page she writes that to make elopement planning easier, "I teamed up with two lovely collegues and founded Our Swiss Elopement," a separate outfit that pairs a photographer and a celebrant for a couple eloping to Switzerland, with optional add-ons for videography, hair and makeup, or, in her own aside, a llama to carry the bags. And her FAQ's answer on whether same-sex couples can hold a freie Trauung goes past a simple yes: "Ja, die freie Trauung Schweiz ist offen für alle Paare, unabhängig von Geschlecht oder Herkunft. Ich bin Mitglied in der Swiss Queer Wedding Association." Yes, open to every couple regardless of gender or background, and she names her own membership in that association as the backing for it, rather than leaving the claim to stand on its own.

Taken together, this is a celebrant whose own pages document more of the working detail, a numbered process, an itemised fee, a stated deposit, than most single-operator sites in this category manage, and who backs an English-speaking couple's decision with real testimonials in their own language rather than a translated slogan. The German-only stretch of the site and the unresolved 220-versus-300 figure are worth asking about directly rather than assuming either way. Neither changes what's actually documented here: a specific process, a fee that holds steady across languages, and 2 concrete reasons, an elopement company and an association membership, that a search for "wedding celebrant" alone wouldn't turn up.