Vanessa & Markus

Vanessa & Markus's main navigation names two crafts as if they were two products: PORTFOLIO, WEDDING STORIES, WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY, PRICING, ABOUT US, CONTACT, FAQ. Only one of the two gets its own page. WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY leads to a page built entirely around Markus, opening in his own voice: "I'm Markus, your wedding filmmaker, working across Switzerland and Austria." He describes coming from Upper Austria and spending the last decade filming weddings across Europe before pairing up with Vanessa, "your wedding photographer." There is no matching page introducing Vanessa the same way. Her half of the work lives on the shared homepage and the About page, folded into the story of the two of them together. That structural imbalance ends up answering the real question before you ever reach a price: this isn't two services a couple gets to choose between.

Their own site says so outright. "We believe that photography and film belong together," it says. "That's why we offer our wedding coverage in Switzerland exclusively as a photo & video duo." Asked directly in the FAQ whether they always work as a team, the answer is just as flat: "For weddings in Switzerland, yes. We work exclusively as a photo & film duo." There is no photography-only booking and no video-only booking on this site, whatever the two nav items imply on first glance. What a couple actually picks between isn't photo versus film. It's how many hours of coverage they need.

Silver and Gold read like the same package, priced twice

Both published Swiss collections bundle stills and film into one line item, and the gap between them is narrow. Silver, at CHF 6900, covers up to 8 hours of combined photography and videography, delivers approx. 600 high-resolution photographs and a wedding film of roughly 8–11 minutes. Gold, at CHF 8200, covers up to 10 hours and roughly 800 photographs, with the same 8–11 minute film. Every other line reads identically across both: a pre-wedding video consultation, documentary-style coverage, natural colour grading and fine retouching, professional audio recording of the vows and speeches, a private online gallery for the photographs, a private viewing link for the film, full private usage rights including licensed music, and a wedding box with a USB drive carrying that same bonus material. Move up a tier and you're paying for more hours and roughly a third more photographs. Nothing about how the day is shot, delivered or licensed changes with it.

There's no published rate for anything shorter. The FAQ's answer on minimum booking time is blunt: "For weddings in Switzerland, we offer combined photo & film collections starting at 8 hours." The imprint separately lists elopements among the services the business offers, right alongside weddings and destination celebrations, but nowhere on the site is there a smaller or cheaper collection built around one. Book an elopement here and you're having a shorter version of the same conversation, not choosing from a distinct, listed product.

No public films, but a gallery, a link and a USB box

Both tiers describe the same working method: documentary coverage that stays in the background, no staged moments, real emotion caught as the day unfolds. The couple portrait session is the one deliberate exception, where the homepage says they "guide you gently" toward what it calls an "editorial, timeless look" without it feeling posed. On the film side, coverage runs on 4K resolution with professional audio and lighting equipment, plus optional drone footage "depending on schedule, weather and location," and the option to record full-length speeches, vows or an entire ceremony rather than just the highlights.

None of the finished films sit on the public site. The videography page says why directly: wedding films are "something deeply personal to us and to our couples," so instead of a public reel, an inquiry earns a private viewing link to a hand-picked set of past work. That's a real limitation for anyone trying to judge the filmmaking from the site alone before making contact, though it reads as a considered choice rather than an oversight. The one testimonial the site does publish, from a couple named Lisa and Philipp, calls the finished film "like a movie trailer," singles out the vows and speeches cut into it, and closes on a flat "10/10" with a promise to recommend the pair at "10,000%."

After the wedding, delivery follows the same shape at either tier. Photographs arrive through a private online gallery in high resolution, the film through its own private link, and both get duplicated onto a USB drive inside the wedding box, alongside the recorded vows and speeches as bonus material.

Booked from abroad, run out of Austria

Vanessa & Markus describe themselves on their own homepage as a "European-based photo & film duo," and the imprint spells out what that means in practice. The operating company is Vandehart KG, registered in Wöllersdorf, Austria, and represented by Vanessa Hartmann-Gnong and Markus Hartmann-Gnong, a shared surname the site never explains but states plainly in the legal notice. For a couple paying from outside Switzerland, that structure has a concrete consequence the tax section spells out: because the wedding service is delivered in Switzerland by an Austria-based company, no Austrian VAT is charged, and the business isn't currently registered for Swiss VAT either, so no Swiss VAT appears on the invoice. Prices are quoted as final CHF figures, and the pricing page frames that as the point: both collections come with "no additional or hidden costs." Travel, accommodation and other Switzerland-side logistics for the wedding are already folded into each package, so a couple isn't organising or budgeting for either on top.

Language works on the same logic. The pair's own working language is German, but the FAQ states they're comfortable running "the entire wedding day, including ceremonies, speeches and coordination with international guests and vendors" in English, which is the claim that actually matters for anyone marrying in Switzerland without German.

When to book, and the one worry they answer unprompted

Booking follows a fixed sequence: a non-binding consultation, a personalised written offer, and a booking that's considered final once a couple confirms that offer. The FAQ recommends reaching out 5–12 months ahead, especially for a summer date, since popular weekends fill fast. On what happens if illness strikes, the answer is specific rather than merely reassuring: "In over 12 years, we've never missed a wedding," backed by what the site calls a trusted network of other photographers and filmmakers they'd call on for a same-quality replacement.

One place the site's own reach outpaces its content: the sitemap lists a handful of city-specific landing pages, including one built around Lucerne, that open as nothing more than navigation and an empty gallery placeholder when read directly. It's a minor gap, closer to an SEO structure still being filled in than to anything a couple actually booking would run into.

For anyone who assumed "photographer" and "videographer" meant two separate hires with two separate budgets, the honest read of this site is that Vanessa & Markus don't sell it that way. Every Swiss wedding gets both of them, priced by how many hours of coverage you need and how many finished images you want, not by which craft matters more to you. That's a real constraint if you only want one half of it. For a couple planning a Swiss wedding around one coordinated team instead, one that has already worked out the cross-border tax and travel questions before you ask, it's a closer match to the actual product than the split menu in the navigation bar suggests.