Elopements · Byron Bay & hinterland · NSW
Elopement celebrant, Byron Bay & hinterland
A Byron Bay elopement with Felicity Best is $750 midweek and $875 Friday to Sunday, whatever the guest list, with the travel included. Permits apply at Wategos, Broken Head and Main Beach, from National Parks or the shire depending on the site. Working alongside a local packager is normal here: most of them handle the permit and the photographer, and Felicity simply joins their run sheet.
What it costs in Byron Bay
| What you get | Mon–Thu | Fri–Sun |
|---|---|---|
| Elopement A ceremony written to tell your love story, a planning meeting, help with your vows, the legal paperwork, PA and wireless microphone, your commemorative certificate. | $750 | $875 |
Australian dollars, no GST. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, whichever gets you there; beyond both it is $1 per kilometre, round trip. Booking fee $250, which comes off the total. Witnesses supplied at $60 each. Council permits for beach and park ceremonies are booked and paid for directly with the council, and are not included.
Byron Bay is about 40 minutes from Murwillumbah. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included; beyond that it is $1 per kilometre round trip. Allow about two months for a weekend date in season.
Venues
Where in Byron Bay
- Wategos Beach
- Broken Head
- Bangalow
- Brunswick Heads
- Mullumbimby
Ceremonies on public beaches, reserves and parks usually need a permit, which you book and pay for directly with the council or land manager. The requirements and fees vary between councils and sites, and they are not included in the ceremony fee.
Sunrise, properly
Wategos at sunrise is the best ceremony on this coast and the least booked one. The beach faces north east into the light, the headland shelters it, the permit slots are almost always available and there is nobody there. In midsummer that means a start around a quarter past five and a photographer who was awake at four. In June it means seven o'clock and a jumper.
What you trade is guests. Twenty people will not all make a sunrise, which is fine if the point was the two of you and a difficult conversation if it was not. Breakfast in town at eight with the whole day still in front of you is the part people describe afterwards.
The order to book things in
Permit first, then photographer, then everything else. The site and the hour decide the light, the crowd, the parking and the wet weather options, and every other supplier can work around a fixed point far more easily than they can move one. In summer the shire's sunset slots are the scarce thing. Sunrise almost never is.
If you are using one of the Byron elopement packagers they will do all of this and I simply join their run sheet, which is a normal and efficient way to work. Booking the parts yourself costs less and takes about six phone calls. Neither is the right answer for everybody.
The paperwork, in NSW
A ceremony in Byron Bay is recorded by the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, because a marriage is registered in the state it took place in. A standard certificate there is $70, and its own registry ceremony is $482 on a weekday. What changes across the border, and the NOIM in full.
Questions
Questions people ask
- Where is the best place to elope in Byron Bay?
- Wategos at sunrise for the light and the shelter, Broken Head for space and rainforest behind the sand, and the hinterland around Bangalow and Federal when summer crowds make the beaches impractical. All of the coastal sites need a permit, and the sunrise slots are far easier to get than sunset.
- How much does a Byron Bay elopement cost in total?
- My fee is $750 to $875. A shire permit, a photographer, and two witnesses if you are travelling alone are the other line items, and a full packaged elopement sold locally typically runs several thousand. Booking the parts separately is cheaper and more work, and both are reasonable.
Get in touch
Check my date
Send the date, or the season, and where for elopements in Byron Bay. I will tell you whether it is free and exactly what it costs. No obligation.
Most days, 9am to 7pm.