Mirjam Nobs

Mirjam Nobs's own homepage states her job in one line: she works as a "freie Traurednerin / Zeremonienleiterin," an independent celebrant and ceremony leader for weddings. Her freie-trauung page goes on to define exactly what that covers, a solemn ceremony held among the people a couple actually wants there, with no religious backdrop and no fixed venue. A couple picks the time and place themselves, whether that's a favourite spot, somewhere in nature, their own garden, a barn on a farm or a rented wedding location; nothing about the format is fixed by her. She's based in 3203 Mühleberg, a small town outside Bern, and everything a couple needs in order to decide whether to write to her sits on her own site.

A checklist numbered 01 to 10, not a paragraph of prose

Nobs's Angebot / Kosten page doesn't describe a booking in sales copy, it itemises it, numbered 01 through 10 like a checklist. Item 01 is a get-to-know conversation, in person or by video, that she calls non-binding and budgets at about 1 hour. Only once a couple confirms do they get item 02, a detailed questionnaire meant to surface the couple's own story. Item 03 is the real planning meeting, held at the couple's home or a location they choose, and it's the longest single block on the list at about 4 hours. Items 04 and 05 are writing and rehearsing the speech itself. Item 06 is optional, designing a ritual to seal the ceremony if a couple wants one, with Nobs offering the inspiration rather than a fixed menu of choices. Item 07 folds her own travel, to every meeting and to the ceremony location, into the same flat fee, with no separate mileage line anywhere on the page. Item 08 is the ceremony itself, which she states runs about 40 to 50 minutes. Item 09 is her own sound system, a personal speaker and microphone, so the ceremony doesn't depend on a venue's equipment. Item 10 extends her support through the whole planning phase not just to the couple but to their witnesses too, named in dialect as "Trauzeugen / Tätschmeistern," Tätschmeister being the Bernese term for the wedding party's own master of ceremonies. All 10 items come under one figure, a flat CHF 2100, with nothing broken out separately anywhere on the page.

A wedding of her own, in August 2021

Nobs didn't come to this by training in the conventional sense. Her About page says she was born in Bern in 1991 and now lives in nearby Mühleberg with her husband and their daughter. The site traces the whole idea back to her own wedding: when she and her husband married in August 2021, they planned a freie Trauung for themselves, and that, by her own account, was the first time she'd even noticed that Trauredner exist as a profession. The thought that she'd like to do it herself, she writes, wouldn't let go of her. She says she'd always liked writing and talking with people, and with her husband's encouragement she turned what she calls her daydreaming into something real. Nothing on the site states a year she began taking bookings professionally, so this listing doesn't guess one. Her own description of herself, borrowed from what she says her friends would say, is humorous, calm and empathetic, and the short list of things she likes, fog included ("ja wirklich," yes really), reads like she wrote her own About page herself rather than handing it to a copywriter.

The other ceremony she writes, a child's welcome, not a wedding

Weddings aren't the only speeches Nobs writes. A separate page, Willkommensfeier, offers to build a ceremony for a "freie Taufe," a secular version of a christening, for parents who want to welcome a child formally into their family and circle of friends without a religious rite. The package mirrors the wedding one in shape but is smaller: 1 free, non-binding get-to-know conversation, 1 preparation meeting, designing a ritual for the ceremony (materials not included), writing and delivering the speech, and coordinating with anyone taking part, she names godparents specifically, "Gotte / Götti" in Swiss German. The flat price is CHF 990 for a speech of 30 minutes, shorter and cheaper than the wedding package but built from the same numbered, itemised approach.

She asks upfront whether you like hearing Bernese German

Nowhere on mirjamnobs.ch is there an English page, an English toggle, or so much as a translated paragraph; every page runs in German only, from the homepage to the impressum. The freie-trauung page states the dialect preference outright, listed as one of the reasons she'd be the right celebrant for a couple, alongside wanting a touching ceremony and being able to laugh at yourselves: "Ihr gerne Berndeutsch hört," you enjoy hearing Bernese German. That's a specific detail worth flagging for a foreign or English-reading couple: Nobs isn't simply a German-speaking celebrant among many, her own copy names the Bernese dialect specifically as part of the pitch, not just standard High German. A couple who need the questionnaire, the planning conversations or the ceremony itself conducted in English would need to arrange their own interpreter; nothing on the site suggests she offers that herself.

Certified, but by whom the site never says

The homepage carries one credential, "Zertifizierte Traurednerin," certified celebrant, next to a certificate image whose own file caption reads "Zertifikat freie Traurednerin und Zeremonienmeisterin." Neither the label nor the image names the school, association or course behind it anywhere in the page's actual text, so this listing states the claim exactly as she makes it rather than attaching a training body she never names herself. What backs it up instead is a page of testimonials, "Worte von Herzen," words from the heart, carrying 12 separate accounts from couples identified only by first initials, R. & T., C. & A. and so on, never a full name. 11 of the 12 carry a photo credit, a different named photographer for nearly every couple; one of them, Andrea Rufener, also shot the photography used across the rest of the site, so at least one of Nobs's own site photographers has also stood behind a couple whose ceremony she led. The testimonials repeat a consistent shape: couples describing her as calm under pressure (one credits her with staying flexible through a change in the weather mid-ceremony), personal rather than templated, and in more than one case so easy to talk to that guests mistook her for an old friend.

Her own definition concedes the legal point in the same breath as the pitch

The clearest thing about the legal question on this site is where it sits, not in a disclaimer or a separate FAQ, but folded into the first sentence that describes what a freie Trauung even is. Nobs's own page calls it a ceremony "welche zwar nicht rechtskräftig ist, dafür mitten in's Herz geht," which, admittedly, is not legally binding, but goes straight to the heart instead. That's accurate: in Switzerland a marriage becomes legally binding only once an accredited civil registrar performs it, somewhere the canton has approved for that purpose, and nowhere on mirjamnobs.ch does Nobs claim to be that registrar or to perform that act. The words Standesamt and Zivilstandsamt don't appear anywhere on her site. A couple booking her for the ceremony their guests actually attend still needs to arrange the separate civil act, and the paperwork behind it, through a registry office of their own, on its own schedule. Nobs never suggests otherwise, and nothing here should be read as her marrying anyone: she writes and delivers the words of a ceremony that sits alongside the legal act, not the act itself.

What holds this listing together isn't a claim to stand out from other Bernese celebrants, it's how much of the process she's willing to put a number on. 10 items, a fixed 4-hour planning meeting, a ceremony timed to 40 to 50 minutes, a flat CHF 2100 that already includes her own travel and sound equipment: a couple reading this page before writing to her knows more about what a booking actually involves than most celebrant sites in this catalog volunteer. The one thing to plan around going in is the language. Everything from the first questionnaire to the ceremony itself runs in German, tuned for an ear that specifically likes Bernese dialect, so a couple who can't manage that themselves will need someone in the room, or on the planning calls, who can.