One of the first questions I ask a couple planning a Swiss celebration isn't about their guest list or their date. It's what kind of Switzerland they're imagining. Because "Switzerland" isn't really one setting. It's several, and they feel entirely different once you're standing in them.
A lakeside celebration, whether at Lake Lucerne, Lake Geneva or Lake Zurich, tends to feel soft and layered: water on one side, mountains rising gently on the other, a kind of calm that photographs beautifully in every direction. It suits couples who want their guests to relax into the surroundings rather than be dazzled by them. Logistically, it's also often the most straightforward: good infrastructure, direct transfers from the city, hotels within easy reach for out-of-town guests.
An alpine setting is a different proposition entirely, dramatic, quieter and more remote. A mountain hut wedding or an alpine meadow ceremony asks more of your guests logistically, but it gives something a lakeside venue simply can't: scale, and a sense of having gone somewhere together. These celebrations reward couples who are comfortable with a smaller, more committed guest list, and who don't mind that the weather has the final word on the day.
Then there's the city, whether Zurich, Geneva or Basel, which I think is underestimated as a wedding setting. It offers architecture, history, genuinely excellent hospitality, and it's the easiest option for international guests flying in. A city celebration can still feel intimate and considered; it just trades alpine drama for a different kind of sophistication.
None of these is objectively "more Swiss" than the others. They're just different answers to the same question: what do you want your guests to feel in the hour before the ceremony starts? Calm and settled, awed and slightly out of breath, or elegant and at ease in a beautiful city? Once a couple can answer that, the region usually chooses itself.
What I'd say to anyone starting this decision: visit if you can, in the season you're marrying in, not just the season that's easiest for you to travel. Switzerland changes character completely between June and October, and the light, which does most of the emotional work in your photographs, changes with it.