Celebrant · Northern Rivers · NSW
Celebrant, Northern Rivers
Lismore, Ballina, Alstonville, Lennox Head and Nimbin are forty-five to sixty minutes from Murwillumbah, where Felicity Best is based, all of it inside the included travel. Ceremonies run $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding. One page covers the whole region rather than a page per town.
Venues
Places I've stood in the Northern Rivers.
- Lismore
- Ballina
- Nimbin
- Alstonville
- Bangalow
- Lennox Head
- Kyogle
- Evans Head
Ceremonies in the Northern Rivers
The same prices as at home, plus the drive.
Northern Rivers is about 50 minutes from Murwillumbah. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, and $1 per kilometre round trip beyond that. Every price is published in full on the prices page.
Three councils, three systems
The region is not one authority. Ballina Shire books the reserves at Lennox Head, Shaws Bay and along the Ballina foreshore, Lismore City manages its own parks, and Byron Shire covers the northern end. Each has its own form, fee and lead time, and a site that sounds local can belong to a different council from the town you had in mind.
Away from the coast the question mostly does not arise. Most Northern Rivers ceremonies are held on private property or in a hall, where the only approval you need is the owner's and the only booking is the hall's.
The drive, and what it does to a run sheet
Lismore is about fifty minutes from Murwillumbah and Ballina an hour. Nimbin and the Nightcap roads take longer than the map suggests, and considerably longer after rain. All of it is inside the included travel, so the drive adds nothing to any of the published figures and there is no call out fee on top of them.
The practical effect is on the ceremony time rather than the price. A late afternoon start out west means my drive home is in the dark on roads with kangaroos on them, which is fine and worth planning for, and it means I arrive with margin rather than on the hour, because there is rarely a second road in.
Which registry
A marriage in the Northern Rivers is registered in NSW by the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages: a standard certificate is $70 and its own registry ceremony $482 on a weekday. What differs across the border.
Questions
Questions people ask
- Do you travel to Lismore and Ballina?
- Yes. Both are forty-five minutes to an hour from Murwillumbah, which puts them inside the included travel, so there is nothing to add for the drive to either one. There is no minimum booking and no separate call out charge on top.
- Why is there one Northern Rivers page and not one per town?
- Because there is not enough that differs between them to write six honest pages. The price, the paperwork and the drive are the same from Lismore to Lennox Head, so one page says it once and notes where the councils differ. Six near identical pages would serve you worse, and search engines would treat them as one anyway.
- Can you marry us at Nimbin or in the hills?
- Yes, and hall and property ceremonies inland are straightforward. The drive is the only real consideration: an hour each way in daylight, longer after rain on the Nightcap roads. Where a ceremony is late in the day it is worth confirming the road in rather than assuming the map.
- How far south and west do you go?
- Casino, Kyogle and Evans Head are about an hour and a quarter from Murwillumbah and are routine, inside the included travel with nothing to add for the drive. Yamba and the Clarence Valley are about two hours, which is past the allowance and the edge of where I work: I take those on by arrangement at $1 a kilometre round trip, about $140, and never assume them.
Get in touch
Check my date
Send the date, or the season, and where for a ceremony in the Northern Rivers. I will tell you whether it is free and exactly what it costs. No obligation.
Most days, 9am to 7pm.