# Best Ceremonies - Felicity Best Celebrant — full text Registered marriage celebrant, Felicity Best, Murwillumbah NSW. Every figure is AUD; Best Ceremonies is not registered for GST, so none is included in any figure here and none is added at booking. Generated 2026-10-11 from the same content the pages render; the short index is https://bestceremonies.com.au/llms.txt and the same data as JSON is https://bestceremonies.com.au/site.json. Celebrant registration A20436, confirmable at https://marriage.ag.gov.au/commonwealthcelebrants/all. ## Scope and limits Best Ceremonies is the website of Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant and funeral celebrant based in Murwillumbah, NSW, with fixed prices published for every ceremony. What the site does: - Publishes a fixed price for every ceremony: a weekday price for Monday to Thursday and a weekend price for Friday to Sunday, in Australian dollars, no GST. - Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, whichever gets you there; past both, travel is $1 a kilometre for the round trip beyond the included kilometres. - Holds ceremonies anywhere within about two hours of Murwillumbah, in New South Wales and Queensland. - Takes enquiries by phone on 0400 110 959 and through the form at https://bestceremonies.com.au/contact/, and Felicity answers them herself. What it does not do: - Nothing on this site books or holds a date, and nothing on it can say whether a date is free. Felicity confirms availability herself. The booking terms: "Your date is booked once the booking fee is paid and the written agreement is signed. Until both are done it is only pencilled in, and someone else can take it." - No tool submits the enquiry form. It sits behind a bot challenge so that a person reads a person's message; give the person https://bestceremonies.com.au/contact/ or the phone number, 0400 110 959. - Prices are not negotiated or quoted on request. A total differs from the published price only by travel past the included distance and by witnesses supplied for a marriage. Council permits for beach and park ceremonies are not included; the couple books and pays the council directly. - No rating or review score is published here. Reviews are on the Google Business Profile, https://maps.google.com/?cid=4866051114095709296. URLs: Every URL ends in a slash. Places live under /areas/ (/areas/scenic-rim/, not /scenic-rim/). A ceremony in a place is /{ceremony}/{place}/ and exists only for the pairs listed on https://bestceremonies.com.au/agents/. Any page has a Markdown copy at its path with .md in place of the closing slash. ## Home ### Best Ceremonies - Felicity Best Celebrant https://bestceremonies.com.au/ Ceremonies across Murwillumbah & Tweed Valley, Tweed Coast, Tweed Heads & Coolangatta, Gold Coast, Byron Bay & hinterland, Northern Rivers, Scenic Rim & Tamborine Mountain. Prices from $450 to $2,350. ### Areas https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/ Place pages: Murwillumbah & Tweed Valley (NSW), Tweed Coast (NSW), Tweed Heads & Coolangatta (NSW), Gold Coast (QLD), Byron Bay & hinterland (NSW), Northern Rivers (NSW), Scenic Rim & Tamborine Mountain (QLD). Reach: about two hours from Murwillumbah each way, which also takes in Brisbane (QLD, about 105 minutes, travel $120) and Yamba & the Clarence Valley (NSW, about 115 minutes, travel $140). ## Ceremonies ### Wedding ceremonies https://bestceremonies.com.au/weddings/ A full wedding ceremony with Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant based in Murwillumbah, is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday. That includes getting to know you both, a ceremony written to tell your love story, help with your vows, a rehearsal, a PA and wireless microphone, lodgement of your legal paperwork and your commemorative certificate. Book at least four months ahead, and lodge your Notice of Intended Marriage at least one calendar month before the day. Lead time: about four months. Documents: Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM), lodged at least one calendar month before your wedding; Birth certificate or passport for each of you; Photo ID; If either of you has been married before, evidence of how that marriage ended, such as a divorce certificate or the former spouse's death certificate; Two witnesses aged 18 or over. - Wedding ceremony: $950 Mon-Thu, $1,200 Fri-Sun. Getting to know you both, a ceremony written to tell your love story, help with your vows, a rehearsal, PA and wireless microphone, arrival well before your guests, lodgement of your legal paperwork, your commemorative certificate. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. - Friend officiates, celebrant does the legals: $950 Mon-Thu, $1,200 Fri-Sun. The legal requirements taken care of, your ceremony prepared with you, coaching for the person you have chosen, everything done correctly on the day. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. A ceremony about you Most importantly, your ceremony will be about you: your story, your personalities, the people you love and the things that matter to you. I recommend booking at least four months ahead, although if your date is sooner, it's always worth asking. Keep in mind that your Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM) must be lodged at least one calendar month before your wedding day. Elopements For couples who want something simple, relaxed and personal: just the two of you, with a few of the people you love, or somewhere special that means something to you. An elopement is $750 Monday to Thursday and $875 Friday to Sunday. It includes a ceremony written to tell your love story, a planning meeting, help with your vows, the legal paperwork, a PA and wireless microphone, and your commemorative marriage certificate. Elopements in full: beaches and parks, witnesses and the one month notice. What the price covers The price covers the whole job, not the hour you see me for. I do not count consultations. Some couples want two meetings and some want six, and charging for the sixth would only teach people not to ask. I write the script out of those conversations, send it to you in draft, and change it as many times as you like, until it sounds like the two of you rather than a template with your names dropped into it. On the day I arrive well before your guests, with a PA and a wireless microphone that holds up outdoors and into a sea breeze. Then the ceremony, the signing, and three certificates. I lodge the paperwork with the registry inside fourteen days, which is a legal deadline rather than a courtesy, and your commemorative certificate is yours to keep. An official marriage certificate is ordered and paid for separately, directly from the registry. If you want a friend to do the talking A friend cannot legally marry you unless they are a registered celebrant, but they can do very nearly everything else. For $950 midweek or $1,200 Friday to Sunday I take the legal words and the paperwork while your friend runs the ceremony. I coach them beforehand so they know what they can say and what they cannot, and on the day there is somebody standing beside them who does this for a living. It is a well established way to do it, and it suits couples who have somebody obvious to ask and would rather not have a stranger at the front of their wedding. Q: How much does a wedding celebrant cost? A: A wedding ceremony is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, no GST. Most celebrants across the Tweed, Byron and the Gold Coast sit between $990 and $1,350 for the same thing, so a weekday here is under that band and Friday to Sunday sits inside it. Q: How far in advance should we book a celebrant? A: I recommend at least four months, and more for a Saturday between September and April, which are the busiest months here. If your date is sooner it is always worth asking. The one hard limit is the law: I have to receive your Notice of Intended Marriage at least one calendar month before the ceremony. Q: What paperwork do we need to get married in Australia? A: A Notice of Intended Marriage lodged at least one month ahead, a birth certificate or passport each, photo identification, and, if either of you has been married before, a divorce certificate or the former spouse's death certificate. On the day you sign three certificates in front of two witnesses aged eighteen or over, and I lodge everything with the registry inside fourteen days. Q: Do you travel for weddings? A: Yes, and for almost everywhere in the region the travel is already in the price. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, whichever gets you there, which covers the Tweed Valley and Coast, Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, Byron Bay and its hinterland, the Northern Rivers, the whole Gold Coast and Tamborine Mountain. Past both rings I charge $1 per kilometre round trip, and I take on anywhere inside about two hours by arrangement, Brisbane included. Q: Can we write our own vows? A: Yes, and most couples write at least part of them. You each have to say one legal line word for word, and I have to say a short legal statement. Everything either side of that is yours. I help with the drafting as part of the full ceremony price rather than charging for it separately. Q: Is a wedding officiant the same as a celebrant? A: They are the same job under two names. Officiant is the American word; in Australia the legal term is celebrant, and only a celebrant registered under the Marriage Act 1961 may solemnise a marriage here. You can check any celebrant on the Attorney-General's public register of marriage celebrants before you book one. ### Elopements https://bestceremonies.com.au/elopements/ An elopement with Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant in Murwillumbah, is $750 Monday to Thursday and $875 Friday to Sunday. That includes a ceremony written to tell your love story, a planning meeting, help with your vows, the legal paperwork, a PA and your commemorative certificate. Two months is usually enough notice, and your Notice of Intended Marriage must be lodged at least one calendar month before the day. Lead time: about two months. Documents: Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM), lodged at least one calendar month before your wedding; Birth certificate or passport for each of you; Photo ID; If either of you has been married before, evidence of how that marriage ended, such as a divorce certificate or the former spouse's death certificate; Two witnesses aged 18 or over, or ask for witnesses to be supplied. - Elopement: $750 Mon-Thu, $875 Fri-Sun. 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. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. Beaches, parks and ceremony locations Thinking about getting married on the beach, in a park or somewhere else outdoors? It's worth checking the rules for your chosen location before you make your plans. Some beaches, parks, headlands and other public spaces require a permit or booking, and the requirements and fees vary between councils and locations. You'll need to contact the relevant council or land manager directly to check whether a permit is required and to arrange and pay for it. If you're getting married on private property, such as a farm, holiday property or private venue, you'll simply need the owner's permission. If you're not sure who to contact for your chosen location, I'm happy to point you in the right direction. You need two witnesses Australian law needs two witnesses aged eighteen or over who can understand what is happening. This is the thing couples who elope have most often not thought about, usually because the whole point was that nobody else would be there. If you are travelling on your own I can supply witnesses. You can ask passers by, and people do, but they have to be sober, over eighteen and willing to give their name and sign it, which is a lot to ask of a stranger on a beach at seven in the morning. Q: Does the number of guests change the price of an elopement? A: No. An elopement can be just the two of you and your witnesses, or a few of the people you love, and the price is the same either way. What you pay depends on the day of the week, never on the guest list, and I write the ceremony for whoever is standing there. Q: How much does an elopement cost? A: I charge $750 Monday to Thursday and $875 Friday to Sunday. Add a photographer if you want one, and a council permit if you are on a beach or in a park, which you arrange and pay for directly with the council. Packaged elopements sold by other businesses bundle all three and usually cost more. Q: Do we need witnesses to elope? A: Yes. Australian law requires two witnesses aged eighteen or over who can understand what is happening. If you are travelling on your own I can supply them for $60 each. This is the thing couples who elope most often have not thought about until the week before. Q: Can we elope on a beach on the Tweed or the Gold Coast? A: Yes, but most beaches, parks and headlands need a permit or a booking, and the requirements and fees vary between councils and locations. You contact the council or land manager directly to check, and to arrange and pay for the permit. Sunset spots get taken months ahead, and if you are not sure who to contact, I am happy to point you in the right direction. Q: How soon can we get married? A: One calendar month after I receive your Notice of Intended Marriage, which is the legal minimum and is very rarely shortened. In practice allow six to eight weeks. Shortening of time is granted only for a specific listed reason, such as employment, travel or illness, and a prescribed authority decides it rather than me. Q: Do you offer elopement packages? A: Not bundled ones. I keep it simple: the ceremony is written for you rather than folded into a package with parts you may not want. Several businesses here sell elopement packages with a photographer, styling and the permit in one booking, and I am glad to be booked into their run sheet. Arranged separately it usually comes to less, and I will work alongside whichever suppliers you choose. ### Legals-only & registry-style ceremonies https://bestceremonies.com.au/legals-only/ A legals only or registry style wedding ceremony with Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant in Murwillumbah, is $650 Monday to Thursday and $750 Friday to Sunday. It runs ten to fifteen minutes and covers the words the law requires, your paperwork lodged and a commemorative certificate, with up to ten guests welcome. Six weeks is usually enough notice, and your Notice of Intended Marriage still has to be lodged one calendar month before the day. Lead time: about six weeks. Documents: Notice of Intended Marriage (NOIM), lodged at least one calendar month before your wedding; Birth certificate or passport for each of you; Photo ID; If either of you has been married before, evidence of how that marriage ended, such as a divorce certificate or the former spouse's death certificate; Two witnesses aged 18 or over. - Legals-only ceremony: $650 Mon-Thu, $750 Fri-Sun. Ten to fifteen minutes with up to ten guests, the legal ceremony, the Notice of Intended Marriage, lodgement of your legal paperwork, a commemorative certificate. No PA and no personalised ceremony script. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. How a registry office wedding compares A legals only ceremony exists because the registry office is not a realistic option for most people here. New South Wales holds its registry ceremonies in Sydney only, at Pyrmont, which is a nine hour drive or a flight from the Tweed, at $482 on a weekday and $597 on a Saturday. Queensland's nearest is Brisbane at $410.60, weekdays only for the legal only service, four people, no guests, and booked out for the rest of the year. I do the same paperwork with up to ten guests, at a place and on a day you choose, and you do not travel for it. The registry's fee is lower on paper. Add the drive to Sydney or Brisbane, a night away and a weekday off work, and it is not. Q: What is a legals-only wedding? A: The shortest lawful ceremony there is. I say the legal statement, you each say one required line, everyone signs, and it is done inside ten to fifteen minutes. There is no processional, no readings and no custom script. Couples use it before a party, before travelling, or because the paperwork is the only part they wanted. Q: Is a legals-only ceremony cheaper than the registry office? A: Not on the fee alone. The NSW registry charges $482 on a weekday and $597 on a Saturday, in Sydney only, a nine hour drive from the Tweed. Queensland charges $410.60 weekday and $534 Saturday in Brisbane, weekdays only for legals. I charge $650 weekday and $750 Friday to Sunday, where you choose, with ten guests and no trip. Q: How many guests can come to a legals-only ceremony? A: Up to ten, plus your two witnesses. That is more than either registry allows: Queensland's legal only service is limited to four people with no guests at all, runs on weekdays only, and is booked out for the rest of the year. Q: Do we still need a Notice of Intended Marriage? A: Yes. The one month notice period applies to every marriage in Australia however short the ceremony is. The form comes to me rather than to the registry, and I have to have it signed and in hand at least one calendar month, and no more than eighteen months, before the day. Q: Can we have a ceremony with family later? A: Yes. Plenty of couples do the legals quietly and hold a ceremony for family months or years later. That second event is a commitment ceremony or a vow renewal rather than a marriage, because you are already married by then, so I price it at $650 rather than as a wedding. ### Vow renewals & commitment ceremonies https://bestceremonies.com.au/vow-renewals/ A wedding vow renewal or commitment ceremony with Felicity Best, a celebrant based in Murwillumbah, is $650 on any day of the week. It includes a script written around your story, a PA and a commemorative certificate. Neither ceremony changes anyone's legal status, so there is no paperwork and no notice period. Six weeks is plenty of warning, and rituals such as a handfasting or a candle lighting can go in. Lead time: about six weeks. - Vow renewal or commitment ceremony: $650 any day. A personalised ceremony written around your story, a PA, a commemorative certificate. One price whatever day of the week it falls on. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. What a renewal looks like on the day There are no legal words in a vow renewal, and that changes the ceremony more than it sounds like it would. At a wedding a minute or two is fixed by the Marriage Act and I cannot reword it. Here nothing at all is compulsory, so the whole half hour is yours: an account of the years since, promises rewritten for the people you are now, and whatever you want to do with your children, your friends or a cord. Most renewals run twenty to thirty minutes, and most are held wherever the party already is: a backyard, a beach, a restaurant's private room, the same hall as the first time. I lodge nothing afterwards and you do not have to organise witnesses, so the only real deadline is when people can get there. After an elopement, or a wedding nobody could come to A lot of the renewals I write are for couples who eloped, or who married in 2020 or 2021 with a handful of people and a cap on the guest list, and never had the day their families expected. A renewal is the cleanest way to have it. You are already married, so there is no notice, no paperwork and no month to wait out, and you can set the date around whoever has to fly. It also lets the ceremony be honest about what it is. Nobody has to pretend to be surprised, the story of the first one is usually the best material I have to work with, and the people who missed it get told what happened instead of watching a re-enactment. Q: Is a vow renewal legally binding? A: No, and that is the point of it. You are already married, so nothing about your status changes and I lodge no forms anywhere. It also means there is no Notice of Intended Marriage, no one month wait and no witnesses required, so you can hold the ceremony whenever it suits you. Q: What is a commitment ceremony? A: A ceremony for two people who want to make promises publicly without marrying, or who cannot marry for a reason of their own. It looks like a wedding and I write it like one, with no legal effect and no paperwork. I price it the same as a vow renewal. Q: Can we include a handfasting? A: Yes. Handfasting is the ritual where I bind your hands with cord or ribbon while you make your promises, and it sits naturally inside a vow renewal, a commitment ceremony or a wedding. Bring your own cords or I will provide them. I do not charge extra for including a ritual. Q: When do people renew their vows? A: Most often on a tenth, twentieth or fiftieth anniversary, after coming through something difficult, or when children who were too young the first time are old enough to take part. Some couples renew because they eloped and never had the day with family in it. ### Naming ceremonies https://bestceremonies.com.au/naming-ceremonies/ A naming ceremony with Felicity Best, a celebrant based in Murwillumbah, is $595 on any day. It includes a family meeting, a script written around your child, a PA, and certificates for the child and for each guide parent. There is no paperwork and no notice period, and six weeks is comfortable. Children of any age can be named, and families often name two or three siblings at once. Lead time: about six weeks. - Naming ceremony: $595 any day. A meeting to hear your story, a ceremony that reflects your family, a PA, certificates for your child and guide parents. One price on any day. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. How a naming day comes together It starts with a meeting, usually at home and usually with the child present and unimpressed. The script comes out of that hour: where the name came from, who chose it, what the pregnancy or the adoption was like, what you hope for. You name the guide parents and I ask each of them for a promise in their own words, which is worth warning them about a fortnight ahead rather than on the day. The ceremony itself runs twenty to thirty minutes. A ritual gives it a shape: a candle lit from a family candle, sand poured from separate jars into one, a seedling that goes in the ground afterwards, or a box of letters written by the guests for the child to open at eighteen. At the end the guide parents sign the certificates, and so does the child, in whatever handwriting is available. Where they are held, and when Almost always somewhere with a kitchen: a backyard, a hall, a grandparent's house, a park shelter booked for the afternoon. Beaches and council reserves work and need the same permit a wedding would. The real constraint is not the venue, it is the nap. A mid morning ceremony followed by lunch works better than anything scheduled at four o'clock. Naming two or three siblings at once is common and costs the same, because the meeting and the script are one job whether there is one name in them or three. Older children can and should have a say in their own ceremony. A seven year old with a line to read is a seven year old who is not asking to go home. Q: What is a naming ceremony? A: A non religious way of welcoming a child into a family and a community, and of naming the adults who will stand behind them. It has no legal effect, because the birth is registered separately, and it borrows whatever a family wants from older traditions without asking anyone to believe anything. Q: What are guide parents? A: The secular equivalent of godparents. They are adults you name publicly, and who make a promise to your child in front of everyone there. There is no legal weight to it, so you can have one or six, and they can be grandparents, friends or older siblings. Q: How old can a child be for a naming ceremony? A: Any age. Babies are the most common, but there is nothing unusual about naming a five year old, naming siblings together, or holding a ceremony for an older child joining a family through adoption or a blended household. The script changes; the price does not. Q: How long does a naming ceremony take? A: Twenty to thirty minutes, which is about as long as a small child will tolerate standing still. That leaves room for readings, a candle or sand ritual, promises from the guide parents, and the certificates, without the day turning into an endurance event for anyone. ### Funerals & celebrations of life https://bestceremonies.com.au/funerals/ A funeral or celebration of life with Felicity Best, a funeral celebrant based in Murwillumbah, is $750. That includes a family meeting, writing the ceremony and eulogy, help bringing together the words and memories you want to share, liaison with your funeral director, and conducting the ceremony on the day. There is no set notice period, and Felicity does not charge extra for short notice or weekends. A farewell that celebrates the life they lived. Lead time: no notice period. - Funeral or celebration of life: $750 any day. A personal meeting with family or loved ones; a personalised eulogy and complete ceremony; help with readings, music, tributes and other personal touches; helping family and friends prepare if they would like to speak; liaison with your funeral director; conducting and guiding the complete ceremony; chapel, graveside or another agreed location; PA and wireless microphone; the final committal. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. - Graveside or ashes committal: $450 any day. A simple, personal committal of around 30 minutes, written and led by me. It can be held on its own or as a separate farewell following a funeral or cremation. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. - Living funeral: $750 any day. A celebration held while someone is still here, planned with the person being celebrated: a chance to gather the people they love, share stories, memories and music, and say the things people so often leave unsaid. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. 1. First, a call You can call me yourself, or your funeral director can contact me on your behalf. Sometimes there are only a few days to organise a funeral, and that's okay. You don't need to have everything worked out before you call. 2. Then a meeting Usually, I'll sit down with you and your family at home or wherever feels comfortable. I'll listen, ask questions and gather the stories that make this person more than a list of dates and achievements. There is no formula for this conversation. Sometimes there is laughter. Sometimes there are tears. Often there is both. 3. Then the writing I'll turn what you've shared with me into a ceremony that sounds like them and reflects the life they lived. I'll send you the draft before the service so you can read it, make changes and tell me if there's anything you'd like added or removed. It's your farewell, and it needs to feel right to you. 4. On the day I'll conduct the ceremony from beginning to end, guiding everyone through the farewell and making sure it feels natural and unhurried. If family or friends would like to be involved, I'll help weave their contributions into the ceremony. They might want to deliver a eulogy, share a favourite story, read something meaningful, talk about a special memory or simply say a few words. And if someone becomes emotional or finds the words difficult, that's okay. I'll be there to gently guide them through. I'll also conduct the final committal, whether that's at the graveside, at the crematorium or at another place chosen by the family. The committal is the final part of the farewell: a few words, a moment of reflection and a final goodbye before the coffin or ashes are committed. Music, readings, photographs and other personal touches can also be included. There is no set formula. I'll create a ceremony with you that reflects the person and the way your family wants to remember them. Every life has a story The people they loved, the things that made them laugh, the places that mattered, the little things that made them who they were. My job is to listen to those stories and bring them together into a farewell that feels genuine, personal and true to the person you are remembering. I understand that when someone dies, there is often very little time to organise everything, and I'll do my best to be there when you need me. Working with your funeral director I work alongside your funeral director rather than adding another layer of work for your family. They will usually take care of things such as the venue, timing, music, slideshow and order of service. I'll liaise with them about the ceremony and make sure everything comes together on the day. If there is no funeral director, for example with a later celebration of life or an ashes committal, you and I can work together directly and I'll bring the PA. What happens after a death There is no set timeframe for a funeral with me. Sometimes there is a week or more; sometimes there are only a few days. I don't require a set notice period and I don't charge extra for short notice or weekends. You can take it one step at a time, and I'll be with you for each one. My job is to listen, to help you find the words when you might not have them yourself, and to create a farewell that feels like the person you're saying goodbye to. Where I conduct funerals, celebrations of life and farewells across the Tweed, Byron and Gold Coast areas. Services can be held at funeral homes and chapels, gravesides, private properties or other suitable locations. If you're unsure whether I'm able to travel to your chosen location, please give me a call. Q: How much does a funeral celebrant cost? A: A full funeral or celebration of life is $750. A graveside or ashes committal on its own is $450, and a living funeral is $750. There is no weekend loading and no additional charge for short notice. Q: How quickly can a funeral be arranged? A: Often within a few days. I don't require a set notice period, and a same-day call is not unusual. Q: What is the difference between a funeral and a celebration of life? A: Often, it's simply about the timing and the way the family wants to say goodbye. A funeral is usually held soon after someone dies and may take place with the person present. A celebration of life may be held later, sometimes after a cremation, and can be a more relaxed gathering centred around stories, memories and the things that made that person who they were. There is no right or wrong way to say goodbye. There is only your way. Q: Can family and friends be involved in the ceremony? A: Absolutely. Some people may want to deliver a eulogy, while others might prefer to share a story, read something, talk about a special memory or simply say a few words. I'll help guide everyone through their contribution and weave those moments naturally into the ceremony. Q: Do you work with our funeral director? A: Yes. I'll liaise directly with your funeral director so your family doesn't have to coordinate everything themselves. Q: What is a committal? A: The committal is the final part of the farewell. It is a short, personal moment when the coffin or ashes are committed, followed by words of goodbye, reflection or remembrance. I conduct the committal as part of the funeral service, or it can be arranged as a separate graveside or ashes committal. Q: What is a living funeral? A: A living funeral is a celebration held while someone is still here. It's an opportunity to gather the people who matter, share stories, express love and say the things people often wish they'd had the chance to say. It is planned with the person being celebrated, making it a deeply personal way to acknowledge their life while they are able to hear those words themselves. Q: What if we don't know what to say? A: That's okay. You don't need to arrive with a finished eulogy or know exactly what you want the ceremony to look like. I'll ask questions, listen to your stories and help you find the words, and you and I will work it out together. ### Celebrant + MC https://bestceremonies.com.au/celebrant-and-mc/ Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant based in Murwillumbah, charges $1,850 Monday to Thursday and $2,350 Friday to Sunday to do the ceremony and MC the reception, taking you from the aisle to the first dance on one run sheet. MC only is $750 for four hours. Book five months ahead for a Saturday. The advantage of one person doing both is that nobody has to be introduced twice. Lead time: about five months. - Ceremony and reception MC: $1,850 Mon-Thu, $2,350 Fri-Sun. Your personalised ceremony, planning and preparation, help with vows, a rehearsal, PA with wireless microphone, the legal paperwork, your commemorative certificate, plus MC duties throughout the reception through to the first dance. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. - MC only: $750 any day. Four hours on site, a run sheet prepared with you and your venue, the reception kept moving naturally, a PA. For couples whose ceremony is being conducted by someone else. Travel within 80 km or 90 minutes of Murwillumbah included, whichever gets you there. What a wedding MC, or master of ceremonies, actually does Most of the work is finished before the reception starts. I agree the run sheet with you and your venue: when the doors open, when the meals land, how long the speeches get, when the cake and the first dance happen, and who announces each of them. Your venue's coordinator runs the room and I run the night, and those two jobs need one document between them rather than two. On the night it is announcements, keeping speeches inside the time they were given, and noticing the things nobody plans for: a speaker who cannot start, a course that lands twenty minutes late, a grandparent who has to leave before the cake. Receptions do not usually fail, they drift, and an hour lost between the entree and the speeches is an hour off the dance floor. One person or two If I carry on as MC there is no handover. I already know the names, the pronunciations, the shape of the family and which uncle is speaking, and the run sheet the ceremony finished on is the one the reception begins from. The two are priced as one tier rather than two bookings, inside the regional range of $1,595 to $3,069 for a celebrant and an MC together. It is not always the right answer. If you have a friend who is genuinely funny and knows everyone in the room, use them. An MC with history in the family beats a professional with a clipboard most nights. The MC only tier at $750 is for the other case: a couple whose ceremony is somebody else's job, or a venue that wants somebody holding the clock while a friend does the jokes. Q: Why have your celebrant MC the reception? A: Because I have already met your families, know how the names are pronounced and have heard the story the speeches will refer to. It also removes a handover: the run sheet the ceremony ends on is the run sheet the reception starts from, and no venue coordinator has to brief a stranger at 6pm. Q: How much does a wedding MC cost? A: $750 for MC only, which covers four hours on site with a run sheet and a PA. Bundled with the ceremony it is $1,850 on a weekday and $2,350 Friday to Sunday. Most Gold Coast celebrants sell the two together, at figures in much the same range. Q: How long does the MC stay? A: MC only is four hours on site, which normally covers guests arriving through to speeches and cake. The bundled package runs from the ceremony through to the first dance, however long that takes on the night. If you want longer, arrange it in advance rather than at the venue. Q: Do you supply the PA? A: Yes, for both the ceremony and the MC work, including a wireless microphone. Most reception venues here have their own system and it is usually better than a portable one, so the run sheet names whichever system is in use on the night and there is a backup either way. ## Places ### Celebrant, Murwillumbah & Tweed Valley https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/murwillumbah-tweed-valley/ Murwillumbah is home for Felicity Best, a registered marriage celebrant, so there is no travel charge anywhere in the Tweed Valley and no minimum booking. Ceremonies here run from $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding. Tyalgum, Uki, Crystal Creek and the Tweed Regional Gallery are all inside twenty minutes, and a same week booking is usually possible midweek. NSW. Home. Venues: Wollumbin, Tyalgum, Uki, Crystal Creek, Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat, Tweed Regional Gallery, Mount Warning Rainforest Park. The valley, practically Murwillumbah sits on the floor of an eroded volcano, with Wollumbin at the western end of nearly every view. The roads out run twenty to forty minutes and all of them narrow as they climb: to Uki and Kyogle, to Tyalgum, to Chillingham and Numinbah, and down the river to Condong and the coast. After heavy rain some of them close, which is worth knowing when the ceremony is at four and half the guests are coming over the range. Mobile coverage is good in town and unreliable above Uki or past Tyalgum. For anything in the upper valley the practical answer is a printed run sheet, a meeting point rather than a dropped pin, and one phone number that belongs to somebody already standing at the site. What being local actually buys you No travel charge anywhere in the shire, no minimum booking, and no half day of driving behind any of it. If you want me to look at a site before you commit to it, that is a twenty minute drive rather than a billable exercise, and I can usually take a midweek date at a week's notice because nothing has to be moved to make room for it. It also means I know the Tweed Shire permit system rather than having to look it up: which reserves take ceremonies, which of them have parking, which get taken first for summer sunsets, and what the fee is before you ring the council, since you book and pay for it directly with them. Q: Do you charge travel in the Tweed Valley? A: No. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included in every price, whichever gets you there, and the whole valley sits a long way inside it: Uki, Tyalgum, Stokers Siding, Burringbar, Crystal Creek and everything up to the base of Wollumbin. Past both rings I charge $1 per kilometre round trip. Q: Where do people get married in the Tweed Valley? A: Private property is the most common answer here, because so many families have a paddock with Wollumbin in the background. After that: Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat, the Tweed Regional Gallery grounds, the Tyalgum hall and the hinterland pubs, and the swimming holes above Uki for very small ceremonies. Q: Do we need a permit to marry in the Tweed hinterland? A: On private property, no. In a Tweed Shire reserve, park or swimming hole, yes. The shire runs a booking system, and popular spots get taken months ahead. You book and pay for it directly with the shire. ### Celebrant, Tweed Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/tweed-coast/ Kingscliff, Cabarita, Casuarina, Pottsville and Fingal Head are twenty five minutes from Murwillumbah, where Felicity Best is based, and inside the included travel ring for most of their length. Ceremonies run $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding. Beach and reserve ceremonies need a Tweed Shire permit, booked well ahead for sunset slots in summer. NSW. About 25 minutes and 22 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Kingscliff, Cabarita Beach, Casuarina, Pottsville, Fingal Head, Osteria, Fins Plantation House, Salt Beach. The permit, and what it does not include Tweed Shire books its beach, headland and reserve ceremony sites, and you book and pay for the permit directly with the shire. What that buys is a time and a place on the council's book, and the certainty that nobody else has been sold the same square of sand for the same hour. It does not close the beach. People will walk past, and at Kingscliff in January quite a few of them will. Book the permit before the photographer and before anything is printed. The site and the hour decide the light, the wind and the parking, and every other supplier can work around a fixed point far more easily than they can move one. You book and pay for it directly with the council, and if you are not sure who to contact, I am happy to point you in the right direction. Sand, tide and getting everyone down there The access points along Salt, Casuarina and Cabarita are mostly stairs or soft sand, which decides more than people expect. Chairs have to be carried down and back up, a walking frame does not travel well, and a king tide can take out the strip of firm sand you planned the ceremony on. Checking the tide for the hour rather than the day is a two minute job that saves an afternoon. Wind is the other one. Afternoon north easterlies are normal between October and March and they are worst on the headlands at Fingal and Cabarita, while mornings are calmer and better lit. A PA with a wireless microphone is in the full ceremony price for exactly this reason: it is the difference between a vow the back row hears and one they watch. Q: Do you need a permit for a beach wedding at Kingscliff or Cabarita? A: Yes. Tweed Shire Council books its beach and reserve sites, and you book and pay for the permit directly with the council. Sunset slots at Kingscliff, Salt Beach and Cabarita go months ahead over summer. You book and pay for the permit directly with the council. Q: Which Tweed Coast venues do you work at? A: Osteria and Fins Plantation House at Kingscliff, the surf clubs and reserves along Salt Beach and Casuarina, Cabarita headland, Pottsville, and Fingal Head lighthouse reserve. Plenty of Tweed Coast ceremonies are also on private decks and lawns, which need no permit at all. Q: What is the wind like for a beach ceremony? A: Enough to matter. A PA with a wireless microphone is in the full ceremony price for exactly this reason, and headland sites like Fingal and Cabarita are more exposed than the beaches below them. Afternoon north easterlies are the usual problem in summer, and mornings are calmer. ### Celebrant, Tweed Heads & Coolangatta https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/tweed-heads-coolangatta/ The state border runs down the middle of this suburb, so a ceremony at Point Danger can be registered in New South Wales or in Queensland depending on which side of the line you stand. That changes the certificate fee, $70 against $58.10, and nothing else about the marriage. Ceremonies with Felicity Best are half an hour from Murwillumbah, and every price is published in full. NSW. About 30 minutes and 32 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Tweed Heads, Coolangatta, Point Danger, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount, Kirra, Snapper Rocks. Where the border runs, and the hour it changes The line runs along Boundary Street and out to the monument at Point Danger, so two halves of one suburb sit in different states. For six months of the year they also sit in different hours. New South Wales observes daylight saving from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April and Queensland does not, so a ceremony at Rainbow Bay called for five o'clock is at six o'clock to anyone driving up from Kingscliff. It is the most common piece of confusion in this suburb and the easiest to fix: put the state next to the time on every invitation, run sheet and supplier confirmation between October and April. Otherwise guests coming from each direction arrive an hour apart, and exactly half of them will have been right. Choosing a registry Where you stand decides it, not a form. A ceremony held on the Queensland side is registered by the Queensland registry, and one held on the New South Wales side goes to New South Wales. I lodge with whichever it is, and you choose by picking the spot. What follows is small and permanent. A standard certificate is $70 in New South Wales and $58.10 in Queensland, and the state that registered the marriage is the one you order a replacement from in twenty years, wherever you are living then. Nothing about the notice, the witnesses or the ceremony itself changes. Q: Does it matter which side of the border we marry on? A: For the marriage itself, no. It is a Commonwealth law and I am authorised Australia wide. What changes is which registry receives the paperwork and what a certificate costs, $70 standard in New South Wales against $58.10 in Queensland, and which state you would order a replacement from if you ever needed one. Q: Can we marry at Point Danger? A: Yes, and the border monument there is on the line itself. It is a Gold Coast City and Tweed Shire boundary site, so the permit depends on exactly where you stand. The lookout, Rainbow Bay and Snapper Rocks are all popular and all get booked for sunset slots months ahead in summer. Q: Are you registered in both states? A: The question does not quite apply. I am authorised by the Commonwealth Attorney-General under the Marriage Act 1961 and may solemnise a marriage anywhere in Australia, so there is no state registration to hold. It is why a Murwillumbah base covers both sides of the border with no extra step. ### Celebrant, Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/gold-coast/ The Gold Coast, Coolangatta to Coomera and the hinterland behind it, is forty minutes to an hour and a half from Murwillumbah, where Felicity Best is based, which puts the whole of it inside the included travel. Ceremonies run $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding, under most Gold Coast celebrants for the same inclusions. City of Gold Coast permits apply to beaches and parks. QLD. About 40 minutes and 55 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Currumbin, Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise, Sanctuary Cove, Springbrook, Gold Coast Farm House, Currumbin Rock Pools. How far north the included travel reaches Travel is included within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah, whichever gets you there, and that takes in the entire coast: Currumbin at twenty-five minutes, Burleigh at forty, Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise at an hour, Sanctuary Cove and Coomera at about an hour and ten. So the drive costs nothing anywhere on this coast. It is the same ceremony at the same price at Rainbow Bay and at Hope Island, and the estimator on the prices page works out anywhere further. The honest caveat is the M1 on a Friday afternoon. North of Broadbeach the drive is an hour and a quarter on a good day and longer when it is not, so I book a late afternoon ceremony up there with an hour's margin and a run sheet that can absorb it. That is a planning note rather than a reason to say no, and it is why I price the far end of the coast here instead of quoting for it. The hinterland is closer than the beach Springbrook, Currumbin Valley and Numinbah read as remote from Surfers Paradise and are not remote from the Tweed Valley. The road up the back of Numinbah is a shorter drive from Murwillumbah than Palm Beach is. Gold Coast Farm House and the Springbrook properties are all comfortable distances, and Tamborine Mountain, on the far side of the council line, has its own page under the Scenic Rim. They are also several degrees cooler than the strip in February, they hold their light later because the ground is higher, and most of them manage their own ceremony approvals, so there is no council booking to make, no site fee to pass through and nobody else's sunset slot to compete for. Q: How much does a Gold Coast celebrant cost? A: A full personalised ceremony is $950 midweek and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, with the travel included: Currumbin is twenty-five minutes from Murwillumbah and the far end of the coast is inside the hour and a half. Gold Coast celebrants typically sit $200 to $500 higher for the same ceremony midweek. Q: Do you need a permit for a Gold Coast beach wedding? A: Yes. The City of Gold Coast books its beach and park ceremony sites. You book and pay for the permit directly with the council, and the requirements and fees vary between sites. Currumbin, Burleigh headland and Palm Beach all have designated spots, and sunset slots between September and April are booked months in advance. Q: How far up the Gold Coast do you travel? A: The whole coast, Coolangatta to Coomera, and the hinterland behind it. Every part of it is inside the included travel: Currumbin is twenty-five minutes, Burleigh forty, Surfers Paradise an hour and Sanctuary Cove about an hour and ten, so nothing is added for the drive anywhere on the coast. North of Broadbeach the drive is the M1, so I book a Friday afternoon ceremony there with an hour's margin rather than declining it. Q: Can you marry us in the Gold Coast hinterland? A: Yes. Springbrook, Currumbin Valley, Numinbah and Gold Coast Farm House are all regular, and Tamborine Mountain, across the council line, has its own page under the Scenic Rim. In some cases the hinterland is closer to Murwillumbah than the beaches are, and my drive up from the Tweed Valley is shorter than most Gold Coast celebrants' drive down. ### Celebrant, Byron Bay & hinterland https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/byron-bay/ Byron Bay and its hinterland, taking in Bangalow, Mullumbimby and Brunswick Heads, are forty minutes from Murwillumbah, where Felicity Best is based, well inside the included travel. Ceremonies run $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding, which is well under the Byron market. Byron Shire permits apply to beaches and reserves and book out early over summer. NSW. About 40 minutes and 45 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Bangalow, Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads, The Farm Byron Bay, Fig Tree Restaurant, Ancora, Broken Head, Wategos Beach. Byron in season, and out of it From October to April the town is at capacity and everything downstream of that is harder: parking, permits, accommodation minimum stays, and the time it takes to get from Bangalow to Wategos on a Saturday afternoon. Festival weekends are worse again. Couples who can move midweek get better sites, cheaper rooms for their guests and a beach that is not being walked across by a hundred people. Out of season it is one of the best places in the country to hold a ceremony. May to September is dry, the light is long and low from about three o'clock, and you can often book the shire's ceremony sites at a fortnight's notice rather than six months'. Beach or property Byron Shire books Main Beach, Broken Head and its other reserves, and NSW National Parks books Wategos and The Pass, and either way you book and pay for the permit directly with them. The properties inland at Bangalow, Federal, Newrybar and Mullumbimby handle their own approvals, which takes an entire booking off your list and usually solves parking at the same time. What you trade is the drive. A hinterland property means guests in cars on unlit roads after dark, and it means saying so on the invitation rather than at the end of the night. A coastal ceremony means a permit, a crowd and a car park, and the beach in the photographs. Q: How much is a Byron Bay wedding celebrant? A: $950 on a weekday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, with the travel included. Byron celebrant fees run higher than anywhere else in the region and the local weekend uplift is steeper, with some carrying a $350 surcharge on top. Q: Do you need a permit to marry on a Byron beach? A: Yes. Byron Shire Council books Main Beach and its reserves, and Wategos and The Pass are booked through NSW National Parks as part of the Cape Byron State Conservation Area. You book and pay for either directly with them. Summer sunset slots are the most competitive booking in this whole region and go many months ahead. Q: Is the hinterland easier to book than Byron itself? A: Usually, yes. Bangalow, Mullumbimby, Federal and the properties between them have more capacity, lower permit pressure and often better light than the beaches in mid summer. They are also a shorter drive from Murwillumbah than Byron town is, and parking is a solved problem rather than a plan. Q: Do you work with Byron elopement packagers? A: Yes. Several businesses here sell complete elopement packages with a photographer, styling and the permit handled, and joining their run sheet is a normal way for me to work. If you have already booked a packager, ask them to add me. If you have not, you can book the ceremony on its own. ### Celebrant, Northern Rivers https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/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. NSW. About 50 minutes and 60 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Lismore, Ballina, Nimbin, Alstonville, Bangalow, Lennox Head, Kyogle, Evans Head. 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. Q: Do you travel to Lismore and Ballina? A: 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. Q: Why is there one Northern Rivers page and not one per town? A: 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. Q: Can you marry us at Nimbin or in the hills? A: 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. Q: How far south and west do you go? A: 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. ### Celebrant, Scenic Rim & Tamborine Mountain https://bestceremonies.com.au/areas/scenic-rim/ Tamborine Mountain, Canungra, Beaudesert and the Beechmont ridge are about an hour and a half from Murwillumbah, where Felicity Best is based. Tamborine and Canungra fall inside the included travel; Beaudesert is a little past it, at $1 per kilometre. Ceremonies run $650 for legals only to $1,200 for a full Saturday wedding. Most Scenic Rim venues are vineyards and homesteads holding their own approvals, so a council permit is rare. QLD. About 90 minutes and 90 km from Murwillumbah. Venues: Tamborine Mountain, Canungra, Beaudesert, Cedar Creek Estate, St Bernards Hotel, Albert River Wines, O'Reilly's Canungra Valley Vineyards, Bromelton House, Binna Burra. The drive, two ways There are two roads up. The Numinbah Valley road leaves Murwillumbah through Chillingham, crosses the border at the Natural Bridge and comes down through Nerang. It is the prettier and the slower, and it closes in heavy rain. The motorway is Tweed Heads to Oxenford and then the climb, and it is the one to take on a Friday afternoon. Either way Tamborine Mountain is about an hour and a half, Canungra a little more, Beaudesert about an hour and three quarters. That is the far edge of where I work, and it is worth saying plainly. The allowance is 80 km or an hour and a half, whichever gets you there, so Tamborine Mountain is inside it on the time even though the road distance is past the kilometre ring, and there is nothing to add for the drive. Beaudesert is past both, at about $70 round trip, with no call out fee on top. What it costs in time is arriving early. An hour's margin on a mountain road is not an hour wasted, and I plan a ceremony called for four o'clock from noon. Vineyards, homesteads and the mountain The Scenic Rim's venues are the ones Brisbane and Gold Coast couples drive to: Cedar Creek Estate and St Bernards on the mountain, Albert River Wines in the valley below it, O'Reilly's Canungra Valley Vineyards, Bromelton House outside Beaudesert, Binna Burra on the Beechmont ridge. Nearly all of them manage their own ceremony sites, so there is no council booking to make, no site fee to pass through and nobody else's slot to compete for. A ceremony here is registered in Queensland, which changes the certificate fee and nothing else about the marriage. The paperwork is the same Notice of Intended Marriage, lodged with me at least a month ahead, whichever side of the border the vineyard is on. Q: Do you travel to Tamborine Mountain? A: Yes. It is about an hour and a half from Murwillumbah, either up the Numinbah Valley and across through Nerang or the motorway to Oxenford and then the climb. An hour and a half is exactly the allowance, so Tamborine Mountain carries no travel charge even though the road distance is past the kilometre ring. There is no minimum booking and no call out fee either. Q: How much is a celebrant in the Scenic Rim? A: The same as everywhere on this site: $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday for a full personalised ceremony, $750 or $875 for an elopement, with the drive to Tamborine included. The estimator on the prices page works the travel out for anywhere further. Q: Do we need a council permit in the Scenic Rim? A: Rarely. Most weddings here are at vineyards, homesteads and mountain venues that hold their own ceremony approvals, so the only booking is the venue's. Scenic Rim Regional Council books its parks and reserves for the few ceremonies held on public land. The venue or the council will say which applies, and you pay any fee directly to whoever charges it. Q: Why is the Scenic Rim its own page and not part of the Gold Coast? A: Because it is a different council, a different drive and a different kind of venue: vineyards and homesteads rather than beaches, several degrees cooler, no sand and no sunset slot to compete for. It is also the far edge of where I will drive, at about two hours, so what the travel includes and where it stops is worth stating plainly rather than left to a quote. ## Ceremonies by place ### Elopement celebrant, Murwillumbah & Tweed Valley https://bestceremonies.com.au/elopements/murwillumbah-tweed-valley/ An elopement in the Tweed Valley with Felicity Best is $750 midweek and $875 Friday to Sunday, with no travel charge anywhere in the shire. Crystal Creek, the swimming holes above Uki and the paddocks under Wollumbin all take small groups, and a Tweed Shire permit applies where you are on public land. Allow eight weeks. Venues: Crystal Creek, Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat, Uki, Tyalgum, Mount Warning Rainforest Park. The three sites worth looking at first Crystal Creek is the reliable one: rainforest, running water, deep shade at any hour, and a road a hire car can get up. The retreat above it has a covered deck, which answers the weather question and the lunch question in one booking. The swimming holes on the Uki side are more beautiful and more work, because it is a short walk in, there are no facilities, and the surface is wet rock rather than lawn. Tyalgum is the wet weather answer and a good ceremony in its own right: a hall, a pub, a main street of four buildings, and paddocks in every direction with the mountain behind them. Past those three, the most common elopement site in this valley is somebody's family property, which needs no permit and no council at all. Reception, and phone reception Coverage is patchy above Uki and past Tyalgum, and an elopement is exactly the kind of day where everybody arrives separately. Agree a meeting point rather than dropping a pin, print the run sheet, and give every supplier one number that belongs to somebody who will already be there. There is not much open late up the valley, which suits a small group better than it sounds. The pubs at Tyalgum and Uki do lunch, Murwillumbah has the town, and a ceremony at four with a long table booked for six is the shape most of these days end up taking. Q: Where can you elope near Murwillumbah? A: Crystal Creek and the rainforest retreat above it, the swimming holes on the Uki side, the Tyalgum hall and pub as a wet weather fallback, and any number of private paddocks with Wollumbin behind them. The hinterland light is best in the two hours before sunset, which is also when the permits get booked out. Q: Is a hinterland elopement cheaper than a coastal one? A: My fee is the same, but the permits are usually lower and the photographers travel less, so the day tends to cost less overall than Kingscliff or Byron. What you trade for it is the drive for your guests and phone reception that comes and goes above Uki. ### Funeral celebrant, Murwillumbah & Tweed Valley https://bestceremonies.com.au/funerals/murwillumbah-tweed-valley/ A funeral or celebration of life in Murwillumbah and the Tweed Valley with Felicity Best is $750, which covers the family meeting, the eulogy, liaison with your funeral director and the PA. There is no travel charge in the shire and no weekend loading, and Felicity can usually take a service within a few days. Venues: Murwillumbah, Tweed Valley, Uki, Tyalgum, Crystal Creek. Where services are held here Most Tweed Valley services are in the chapels the local funeral directors use, at graveside, or at home. The halls at Uki, Tyalgum and Stokers Siding take a gathering of any size and are often the right answer for a farming family, where the connection is the district rather than a church. Gardens and paddocks work too, and a marquee and a PA solve the rest of it. A Sunday service costs what a Tuesday one does. Where there is no funeral director, which is more common with celebrations of life held later and with ashes committals, I take the run sheet and bring the sound myself, and I will meet whoever is organising it wherever suits them. Arranging one from a long way away Families here are often scattered, and the person organising the service is frequently the one who moved to Brisbane or Melbourne twenty years ago. The family meeting works by phone or video where it has to, and it works better with three people on the call than one, because a eulogy comes out of what people remember differently. I can usually take a service within a few days of the first call, which is normally what the funeral director's chapel time allows anyway. Where relatives are flying in from overseas, a small committal in the week and a celebration of life a month or two later is an ordinary and entirely respectable way to do it. Q: Is there a funeral celebrant in Murwillumbah? A: Yes. I am based in the town. Very few funeral celebrants list themselves in the Tweed Valley, so families often start with their funeral director's suggestion or a directory. I hold services at the chapels the local funeral directors use, at graveside, or at home. Q: How much does a funeral celebrant cost in the Tweed? A: $750 for a full service and $450 for a committal, both including the family meeting, the writing and the PA. There is no weekend loading, no short notice fee and no travel charge anywhere in the Tweed Valley. ### Wedding celebrant, Tweed Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/weddings/tweed-coast/ A full wedding on the Tweed Coast with Felicity Best is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, with a PA and wireless microphone included because Kingscliff, Cabarita and Fingal Head are all exposed. A beach or reserve also needs a Tweed Shire permit. Book six to twelve months out for a summer Saturday. Venues: Kingscliff, Cabarita Beach, Casuarina, Pottsville, Fingal Head, Osteria, Fins Plantation House, Salt Beach. Decide the wet weather plan in advance Rain here arrives in short heavy bursts, so the plan is usually a delay rather than a relocation. Two things need deciding before the week of the wedding: where you would go, and who makes the call. A two hour window and one nominated person beats a group message at eleven in the morning. Osteria and Fins Plantation House both have cover, the surf clubs along the coast take a ceremony at short notice, and most of the Kingscliff and Casuarina accommodation has a deck that holds thirty. A council permit buys a site at a time. Moving to private ground does not need one at all. Where the reception is, and what that decides Most Tweed Coast weddings put the ceremony on sand and the reception somewhere with a kitchen, which means a transfer. Twenty minutes from Fingal Head to Kingscliff, ten from Cabarita to Casuarina: short enough that guests will drive it, long enough that it belongs on the invitation with a time against it. Where one venue does both, the ceremony usually moves to their lawn or deck and the permit disappears. Osteria and Fins work that way, as do several of the Salt and Casuarina properties. It costs you the beach in the photographs and buys back an hour of the afternoon, and couples split about evenly on which is worth more. Q: How much is a wedding celebrant at Kingscliff? A: $950 on a weekday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday for a full personalised ceremony, with no travel charge, because Kingscliff is inside the included ring. Most Tweed Coast celebrants charge in the same band, and mine sits in the middle of it. Q: Can we marry at Salt Beach or Casuarina? A: Yes, with a council permit. Both are Tweed Shire reserves with formal booking, and the beach access points at Casuarina are narrow enough that the exact site matters, so a look at it before you book a photographer is worth the drive. Osteria and Fins are the usual wet weather fallbacks nearby. ### Wedding celebrant, Tweed Heads & Coolangatta https://bestceremonies.com.au/weddings/tweed-heads-coolangatta/ A full wedding at Tweed Heads or Coolangatta with Felicity Best is $950 midweek and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, half an hour from Murwillumbah and inside the included travel ring. Rainbow Bay, Greenmount and Point Danger are the usual sites, all council permitted. The border means you can choose the New South Wales or Queensland registry, which changes only the certificate fee. Venues: Tweed Heads, Coolangatta, Point Danger, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount, Kirra, Snapper Rocks. Which council books which site North of Boundary Street is City of Gold Coast, and that takes in Rainbow Bay, Greenmount, Kirra, Snapper Rocks and the Coolangatta beachfront. South of it, including Jack Evans Boat Harbour and the Tweed Heads foreshore, is Tweed Shire. Point Danger sits on both, and which one you apply to depends on precisely where the ceremony stands. Two systems, two forms, two fee schedules, and neither council will mention the other. Pick the spot on the ground first and confirm the council second. Booking a permit and then discovering the view you wanted is a hundred metres into the other shire is a solvable problem and an avoidable one. The sites, compared Rainbow Bay is the most booked and the easiest: parking close by, a short walk, Greenmount headland in the frame. Greenmount itself is higher, quieter and windier. Kirra is wide and long, which flatters a large group and exposes it to a north easterly. Snapper Rocks is spectacular and full of surfers from first light. Point Danger is the one people come for, with a lookout, a border monument and ocean on three sides, and it is also a car park with a steady flow of visitors through it. It photographs better than it feels. For more than about twenty guests, one of the beaches below is usually the better ceremony and the lookout is where you go afterwards. Q: Where do people marry in Coolangatta? A: Rainbow Bay and Greenmount are the two most booked spots, both with a reliable backdrop and both needing a City of Gold Coast permit. Point Danger sits on the border above them. Kirra and Snapper Rocks are quieter, and the surf clubs along the strip are the standard wet weather plan. Q: Is a Tweed Heads celebrant cheaper than a Gold Coast one? A: Usually. Gold Coast celebrant fees for a full midweek ceremony cluster $200 to $500 higher than mine, and a Murwillumbah base means no travel charge at Tweed Heads at all. The ceremony and the paperwork are identical either way, because the border is administrative rather than practical. ### Legals-only celebrant, Tweed Heads & Coolangatta https://bestceremonies.com.au/legals-only/tweed-heads-coolangatta/ A legals only ceremony at Tweed Heads with Felicity Best is $650 midweek: ten to fifteen minutes, up to ten guests, paperwork lodged. On the border you can register in either state, and Queensland's certificate is $58.10 against $70 in New South Wales. Neither registry offers anything this quick without a weekday trip to Sydney or Brisbane. Venues: Tweed Heads, Coolangatta, Point Danger, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount, Kirra, Snapper Rocks. What the ten minutes contains A welcome, my legal statement about the nature of marriage in Australia, one line of vows each said word for word, and three certificates signed in front of two witnesses. That is the entire legal requirement and everything else is optional. Most couples add a reading or a ring exchange, which takes it to about fifteen minutes. Afterwards I send the paperwork to the registry within fourteen days, which is a legal deadline rather than a courtesy. You leave with a commemorative certificate, and you order the official one from the registry at their price, either on the day or in five years. What it does not shorten A legals only ceremony is a short ceremony, not a short process. Your Notice of Intended Marriage still has to be lodged at least one calendar month before the day, you still need a birth certificate or passport each, photo identification and evidence that any previous marriage has ended, and you still need two witnesses aged eighteen or over. The NOIM, explained. What it does shorten is everything the law does not ask for: no script to write, no rehearsal, no consultations to schedule. It suits couples marrying quietly before a larger celebration later, couples marrying a second time, and anyone who would rather deal with the law on one day and hold the party on another. Q: Where is the nearest registry office to Tweed Heads? A: Brisbane, about ninety minutes north, or Sydney, which is a flight or a nine hour drive, because New South Wales holds registry ceremonies in Sydney only. That is the whole reason a legals only ceremony exists locally: the same paperwork, done where you are, on a day of your choosing. Q: Which registry is cheaper for the certificate? A: Queensland, marginally: $58.10 for a standard marriage certificate against $70 in New South Wales, with priority options in both. It is a small difference, and it is the only practical consequence of choosing a side of the border for a ceremony held at Tweed Heads. ### Wedding celebrant, Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/weddings/gold-coast/ A full Gold Coast wedding ceremony with Felicity Best is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, with the travel to Currumbin or Palm Beach included. Midweek that sits well below most Gold Coast celebrants for the same inclusions. Beaches and parks need a City of Gold Coast permit. Book six to twelve months out for a summer Saturday. Venues: Currumbin, Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise, Sanctuary Cove, Springbrook, Gold Coast Farm House, Currumbin Rock Pools. Venue weddings and council weddings are different bookings A wedding at Gold Coast Farm House or one of the Springbrook properties is one booking: they hold their own ceremony approvals, they have a wet weather room, and they will tell you what hour the light is good on their own lawn. A wedding at Currumbin, Burleigh or Palm Beach is two bookings, because the City of Gold Coast books the site and the reception is somewhere else. That second shape needs a transfer written into the run sheet. Twenty minutes from Currumbin to a Burleigh restaurant on a Saturday afternoon in March is not twenty minutes, and the gap between a ceremony finishing and a room opening is where a wedding day quietly loses an hour. Booking against the Gold Coast calendar Six to twelve months for a Saturday between September and April is the honest answer, and I am rarely the constraint. It is the venue first, the photographer second and the council site third. Schoolies in late November and the fortnight either side of Christmas make accommodation for your guests the hardest part of the whole exercise. Midweek is a genuinely different market. Monday to Thursday the ceremony is $950 rather than $1,200, council sites are available, the beaches are empty at eight in the morning and every other supplier has room to move. A Wednesday wedding in May is the easiest good wedding to book on this coast. Q: How much is a wedding celebrant on the Gold Coast? A: $950 weekday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, against a Gold Coast range that mostly runs $1,300 to $2,189 for a comparable ceremony. The difference is a Murwillumbah base rather than a lesser service. The inclusions are unlimited consultations, a written script, a rehearsal, a PA and lodgement. Q: Where do people get married on the southern Gold Coast? A: Currumbin beach and the rock pools, Burleigh headland and Justins Park, Palm Beach parklands, and the hinterland behind them at Springbrook and Gold Coast Farm House, with Tamborine Mountain on its own Scenic Rim page. The beaches need a council permit and most hinterland venues handle their own. ### Elopement celebrant, Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/elopements/gold-coast/ A Gold Coast elopement with Felicity Best is $750 midweek and $875 Friday to Sunday, whatever the guest list, with the drive from Murwillumbah included. A beach or park needs a City of Gold Coast permit, booked and paid for directly with the council. Most packaged Gold Coast elopements bundle a photographer and a stylist and cost considerably more. This price is the ceremony on its own. Venues: Currumbin, Currumbin Rock Pools, Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Tallebudgera Creek. Currumbin, in detail Currumbin is the most useful elopement location on the southern Gold Coast because it is three sites in one. The rock pools up the valley give you shade, still water and no wind. The creek mouth at the Alley is flat, sheltered and walkable from the car. The beach is the wide open version, and the headland behind it holds the light after the sand has lost it. All three are City of Gold Coast ceremony sites and all three need a permit. Parking at the Alley fills early on weekends and at any hour in January. A weekday morning solves that entirely, and the water is calmer then too. Doing it at short notice The binding constraint is not me and not the venue. It is the calendar month between lodging your Notice of Intended Marriage and the ceremony, and no agreement can waive it. A shortening of time goes to a prescribed authority, needs documented grounds and is refused often. Work to the month. The NOIM, explained. Inside that, a Gold Coast elopement can come together in a fortnight. Council permits at short notice are usually available midweek and almost never at a summer sunset, the photographer is the next bottleneck, and if you are travelling on your own then two witnesses aged eighteen or over have to come from somewhere. I can supply them at $60 each. Q: Where can you elope on the Gold Coast? A: Currumbin beach and the rock pools up the valley, Tallebudgera Creek, Burleigh headland at first light, and Palm Beach parklands. All are council sites needing a permit. The hinterland at Springbrook, and Tamborine Mountain over the council line, is quieter, cooler and usually easier to book at short notice. Q: Do Gold Coast elopement packages include a celebrant? A: Most do, and several of the packagers here are worth using, because they handle the permit, the photographer and the styling in one booking. If you already have a packager, book me into their run sheet. If you do not, $875 covers the ceremony itself on a weekend. ### Legals-only celebrant, Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/legals-only/gold-coast/ A legals only ceremony on the Gold Coast with Felicity Best is $650 midweek and $750 Friday to Sunday, with up to ten guests. The Queensland registry's equivalent is $410.60, but weekdays only, fifteen minutes, four people, no guests, in Brisbane, and it is booked out for the rest of the year. This is the same paperwork, where you are, on a day you choose. Venues: Currumbin, Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Broadbeach, Surfers Paradise, Sanctuary Cove, Springbrook, Gold Coast Farm House, Currumbin Rock Pools. Where the ceremony actually happens Anywhere you like, which is most of the point. A living room, a back deck, a restaurant table before lunch, a park bench, the lawn at a friend's place. Private ground or a venue needs nothing but permission. A designated council ceremony site, such as a Currumbin or Burleigh beach spot, needs a City of Gold Coast permit like any other ceremony, which is usually more process than a ten minute ceremony wants. Ten guests plus your two witnesses is the limit, and it is deliberately more than the Queensland registry allows in total. Most couples bring four or five people, which is the number that fits around a table afterwards without a booking. Who books this, and why Couples marrying quietly ahead of a party later, so the legal date and the celebration date do not have to be the same day. Couples marrying a second or third time, who have done the large version and would not do it again. Couples on a visa timeline, or with a parent who is unwell and cannot wait for a season to come around. None of those is a lesser wedding and I do not treat any of them as one. The ceremony is short because the law is short, not because the day is small, and the words that have to be said are the same words said at every wedding in Australia. Q: Is the Brisbane registry cheaper than a legals-only celebrant? A: By the gap between $650 and the registry's $410.60 on a weekday, and it costs you the drive to Brisbane, a weekday off work, a fifteen minute slot in a service booked out for the rest of the year, and a limit of four people with no guests. A Saturday registry wedding is $534, against $750 here for a ceremony with guests. Q: Can we have guests at a legals-only ceremony? A: Up to ten, plus your two witnesses. That is the main practical difference from the Queensland registry service, which allows four people in total and no guests at all. The ceremony itself is the same ten to fifteen minutes either way. ### Funeral celebrant, Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/funerals/gold-coast/ A funeral or celebration of life on the Gold Coast with Felicity Best is $750, including the family meeting, the eulogy, liaison with your funeral director and the PA, with the travel included. There is no weekend loading and no short notice fee, and Felicity can usually take a service within a few days. Venues: Currumbin, Palm Beach, Burleigh Heads, Tugun, Elanora. Chapel times, and why services run to the clock Most Gold Coast services are held in a crematorium or memorial park chapel, and those chapels run back to back. The booking is normally an hour, of which about forty-five minutes is the service and the rest is arriving and leaving. That is not a rushed hour if the running order was built for it, and it is a very difficult one if six people were each going to speak for ten minutes. I fix that at the family meeting rather than on the day: a written order with names and times against them, one main eulogy that I carry, and speakers who know they have four minutes. Where a family wants an open floor, the wake or a later gathering is a better place for it than a chapel with another service waiting outside. When the family is spread out Gold Coast families are frequently half somewhere else. Where people cannot travel in time your funeral director can record or stream the service, and most of the larger chapels are set up for it. It is worth me writing the ceremony knowing that some of the audience is watching a screen at an awkward hour. The other pattern is two events: a small committal within the week for whoever is here, and a celebration of life weeks or months later when everyone can come. A committal on its own is $450, and I do not charge a penalty for arranging the second gathering later. It is a common shape rather than an unusual one. Q: How much does a funeral celebrant cost on the Gold Coast? A: $750 for a full service and $450 for a committal, both including the family meeting, the eulogy, the liaison with your funeral director and the PA, with the travel from Murwillumbah included. There is no weekend loading and no short notice fee. Q: Do you take services at short notice? A: Yes. There is no notice period for a funeral, no weekend loading and no short notice fee. Most families ring once their funeral director has a chapel time, which is often two or three days out, and that is a normal amount of warning rather than an emergency. ### Wedding celebrant, Byron Bay & hinterland https://bestceremonies.com.au/weddings/byron-bay/ A full wedding in Byron Bay or its hinterland with Felicity Best is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, with the drive from Murwillumbah included. Permits apply at Main Beach, Wategos and Broken Head, from Byron Shire or National Parks depending on the site, and they go months ahead for summer sunsets. The Bangalow and Mullumbimby properties are easier to book and closer to home. Venues: Bangalow, Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads, The Farm Byron Bay, Fig Tree Restaurant, Ancora, Broken Head, Wategos Beach. What a shire permit does and does not give you Byron Shire books its beaches and reserves, and NSW National Parks books Wategos and The Pass. Both charge a fee, and you book and pay for it directly with them. What you get is that site, at that time, on the council's book, with nobody else sold the same spot. What you do not get is a closed beach. Wategos in January has people on it, and the permit does not move them. It also does not include chairs, an arbour, power, or anything you would otherwise have to carry in and take out again. Leave no trace conditions apply and are enforced. For a group over about forty, a property inland is usually the kinder ceremony, and it removes the permit from the list entirely. Getting a hundred people to Byron The hard parts of a Byron wedding are logistics rather than ceremony. Accommodation carries minimum stays in season, parking at Wategos and the lighthouse is limited and enforced, and the drive from Bangalow into town on a Saturday afternoon in January takes considerably longer than any map allows for. Two things solve most of it: a start time earlier than four o'clock, and a shuttle. Couples marrying midweek, or between May and September, get the town at a completely different pressure, with the same beaches, a quarter of the traffic, and shire sites that are actually available. Q: Where do people get married in Byron Bay? A: Wategos and Broken Head for beaches, the Cape Byron lighthouse precinct, and inland at The Farm, Fig Tree, Ancora and the Bangalow and Federal properties. Beach and reserve sites all need a permit, from Byron Shire or from National Parks at Wategos. Venues generally handle their own approvals and simply need me booked in. Q: Why is a Byron wedding celebrant cheaper from Murwillumbah? A: Because my overheads are not Byron's. Forty minutes' drive is inside my included travel, on top of a fee I set against the Tweed market rather than the Byron one. The ceremony, the inclusions and the paperwork are identical. The difference is where I spend my other weekends. ### Elopement celebrant, Byron Bay & hinterland https://bestceremonies.com.au/elopements/byron-bay/ 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. Venues: Wategos Beach, Broken Head, Bangalow, Brunswick Heads, Mullumbimby. 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. Q: Where is the best place to elope in Byron Bay? A: 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. Q: How much does a Byron Bay elopement cost in total? A: 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. ## Guides ### Prices https://bestceremonies.com.au/prices/ Every price Felicity Best charges is published in full, in Australian dollars, no GST. A full wedding ceremony is $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday, and the shortest legal ceremony is $650. The table below carries every tier in both columns, with travel, permits and the booking fee listed rather than added later. Upfront pricing I believe in being upfront about pricing. You should be able to look at the website and have a good idea of what your ceremony will cost before the first conversation. All prices are in Australian dollars, no GST, and the figure in the table is the figure you pay. Travel Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included. If your ceremony is beyond both of those, travel is charged at $1 per kilometre, round trip. If you're somewhere outside my usual area, please ask. I'll always let you know the travel cost before you book. Booking A $250 booking fee is required to secure your date, and it comes off the total cost of your ceremony. Witnesses If you need witnesses supplied for your wedding ceremony, I can arrange this for $60 per witness. Council and venue permits If your ceremony is being held on a beach, in a park or on other council-managed land, you'll need to check with the relevant council or land manager about whether a permit is required and arrange it directly with them. Any permit costs are your responsibility and are not included in my ceremony fee. Official marriage certificate Your ceremony fee includes a commemorative certificate, which you sign on the day. After your wedding, I lodge your legal paperwork with the relevant registry. If you'd like an official marriage certificate, you can order and pay for it directly from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the state or territory where you were married: $70 in New South Wales and $58.10 in Queensland. It is not included in my ceremony fee. Straightforward pricing No hidden weekend loading, because the weekend price is published beside the weekday one, and nothing added at booking. Just straightforward pricing, so you know what your ceremony will cost from the beginning. Q: How much does a celebrant cost? A: I charge $950 for a full weekday ceremony, $1,200 on a Saturday and $650 for legals only, no GST, with both columns shown rather than a surcharge added on later. Across the Tweed, Byron and the Gold Coast most full ceremonies sit between $990 and $1,350. Q: How much does a wedding celebrant cost? A: $950 Monday to Thursday and $1,200 Friday to Sunday for a wedding ceremony: getting to know you both, a ceremony written to tell your love story, help with your vows, a rehearsal, a PA with a wireless microphone, arrival well before your guests, lodgement of your legal paperwork and your commemorative certificate, with travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah included. Q: Why do prices go up on the weekend? A: Because a Saturday in season is the one thing I cannot make more of: about twenty-six of them a year, one ceremony each. Most of this market charges for it, usually $100 more Friday to Sunday and up to $350 at Byron. My gap on a full wedding is $250, and it is the weekday column that is the discount rather than the weekend column that is a loading. Short ceremonies carry one price whatever the day. Q: Is there GST on top? A: No. Best Ceremonies is not registered for GST, so none is included in any figure here and none is added at booking. The published figure is the total. Australian consumer law asks that a price advertised to a consumer be a single total figure rather than a base with additions discovered later, and that is what every figure in the table is. There is no separate line at booking and no card surcharge. Q: What is the booking fee and is it refundable? A: $250, paid to hold the date, with the balance due four weeks before the ceremony. It comes off the total rather than being charged on top. The common practice across this market is $200 to $300, or a quarter to half of the fee. Q: Do you charge for travel? A: Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, whichever gets you there. That covers the whole Tweed, the Gold Coast to Coomera, Byron Bay and its hinterland, the Northern Rivers as far as Casino, and Tamborine Mountain up on the range, so almost nobody pays for the drive. Past both rings I charge $1 per kilometre round trip, under the market norm of $0.88 to $1. Q: What else costs money on the day? A: Council permits for beach and park ceremonies, where a site needs one: you arrange and pay for them directly with the council or land manager, and they are not included in my fee. Witnesses at $60 each if you need them supplied. An in person rehearsal is $150 and is already in the full ceremony and MC packages. An official marriage certificate is an additional cost, ordered and paid for directly from the registry. Q: How does this compare with the registry office? A: The NSW registry charges $482 on a weekday and $597 on a Saturday, in Sydney only. Queensland charges $410.60 and $534 in Brisbane, weekdays only for legals only, four people, no guests. I charge $650 and $750, where you are, with up to ten guests. Q: Do you offer packages? A: The published tiers are the packages. I bundle ceremony plus reception MC at $1,850 midweek and $2,350 on a weekend, because that is how the market sells it and because one person doing both means nothing has to be handed over. I do not quote individually, because the tiers already cover what people ask for. ### The NOIM, explained https://bestceremonies.com.au/noim/ A Notice of Intended Marriage, or NOIM form, is the form that starts a marriage. It goes to your celebrant, not to the registry, at least one calendar month and no more than eighteen months before the day. You each need a birth certificate or passport, photo identification, and evidence that any previous marriage has ended. The one month rule, exactly One calendar month means the same date in the following month, not thirty days. A notice received on 12 February covers a ceremony on 12 March. Received on 13 February, it does not. The clock starts when your celebrant receives the completed notice, not when you sign it, which is what catches couples who post it from overseas. The notice is also valid for a maximum of eighteen months. If your date moves past that window the notice lapses, you have to lodge a new one, and the month starts again. The same rule applies whether you are having a full wedding or a legals only wedding, because it is the notice the law counts rather than the ceremony. Shortening of time The one month period can be shortened, but not by your celebrant and not by agreement. An application goes to a prescribed authority, in practice a nominated officer at the state registry or a court registrar, and it has to fall into one of five categories: employment or travel commitments, arrangements already made for the wedding or religious considerations, medical reasons, legal proceedings, or an error in giving notice. You need evidence, and it is refused often. A wedding booked at short notice is not by itself a reason. The arrangements category means something like a deployment date or a visa expiry, documented. Assume it will not be granted and work to the month. Q: What is a Notice of Intended Marriage? A: The Commonwealth form that gives legal notice you intend to marry. You both sign it and lodge it with your celebrant, who holds it and later lodges the completed paperwork with the state registry. Without a valid notice on file at least one month before the day, the marriage cannot proceed. Q: When does the NOIM have to be lodged? A: At least one calendar month before the ceremony and no more than eighteen months before it. One calendar month means the same date in the following month, not thirty days. If your ceremony is on 12 March, your celebrant needs the notice by 12 February at the latest. Q: What documents do we need for the NOIM? A: A birth certificate or a current passport for each of you, photo identification, and a divorce order or death certificate if either of you has been married before. Documents in another language need an authorised translation. Your celebrant has to sight the originals, so copies are not enough on their own. Q: Can the one-month notice be shortened? A: Only by a prescribed authority, and only for one of five listed reasons: employment or travel commitments, wedding arrangements already made or religious considerations, medical reasons, legal proceedings, or an error in giving notice. You apply in person with evidence, it is not granted often, and your celebrant cannot approve it. Q: Do we sign the NOIM in front of our celebrant? A: One of you has to sign it in front of an authorised witness: me, a doctor, a lawyer, a police officer, a JP, or an Australian consular officer if you are overseas. The other can sign later, before the ceremony. I can witness it in person or by video link where the requirements for witnessing it that way are met and you are in Australia. In practice most couples sign together at the first meeting. Q: What if we are overseas when we lodge? A: You can sign the notice in front of an Australian diplomatic or consular officer, or a notary public overseas, and post or email it to your celebrant. The one month clock starts when they receive it rather than when you sign, so allow for the post. Q: Who lodges the paperwork after the wedding? A: Your celebrant, within fourteen days, to the registry in the state where the marriage took place. You sign three certificates on the day: one for the registry, one for your celebrant's records and one decorative copy for you. The decorative one is not the legal certificate. Q: Is the certificate we sign on the day the official one? A: No, and this catches a lot of couples. The commemorative certificate you sign at the ceremony is a keepsake. The state registry issues the legal marriage certificate and you order it separately, at $70 in New South Wales or $58.10 in Queensland. That is the one Services Australia and Passports will ask for. ### Getting married in NSW, in Queensland, and across the border https://bestceremonies.com.au/getting-married-nsw-qld/ How to get married in Australia is the same in every state, because marriage law is Commonwealth law: one month's notice, two witnesses, an authorised celebrant. What differs across the Tweed border is the registry that receives your paperwork and what it charges, at $70 for a New South Wales certificate against $58.10 in Queensland, and where a registry ceremony can be held. How to get married in New South Wales or Queensland The Marriage Act 1961 is Commonwealth law, and its requirements are identical in Sydney, Brisbane and everywhere between: one calendar month's notice, two witnesses aged eighteen or over, an authorised celebrant, and the legal words said by both of you. A celebrant registered under it may solemnise a marriage anywhere in Australia, and there is no state registration to hold. What the states administer is the record. The registry in the state where the ceremony took place receives the paperwork, registers the marriage and issues the certificate, and that decides which office you deal with for the rest of your life if you ever need a replacement. Which side of the border For anyone marrying around Tweed Heads and Coolangatta this is a live choice rather than a curiosity. The state line runs through the suburb, and moving a hundred metres changes which registry records the marriage. Practically, the difference is the certificate fee and the office you would write to later. Nothing about the ceremony, the notice or the witnesses changes at all. The registry office ceremonies themselves are a different matter. Queensland's is in Brisbane, ninety minutes north, and its legal only service is weekdays only, fifteen minutes, four people, no guests. New South Wales holds none closer than Pyrmont, in Sydney. Q: Are the marriage laws different in NSW and Queensland? A: No. The Marriage Act 1961 is Commonwealth law and applies identically in every state and territory: one calendar month's notice, two witnesses aged eighteen or over, and an authorised celebrant. What differs is administrative, which is to say which state registry records the marriage, what a certificate costs, and where a registry office ceremony can be held. Q: Which state records our marriage? A: The state the ceremony was held in. A ceremony at Kingscliff is recorded in New South Wales, and one at Coolangatta, half an hour up the road, is recorded in Queensland. It makes no difference to the marriage itself, but it decides which registry you order certificates from for the rest of your life. Q: How much is a marriage certificate in NSW and Queensland? A: New South Wales charges $70 for a standard certificate and $105 for priority. Queensland charges $58.10, with a $75.60 commemorative pack. You order either from the state registry after the marriage is registered, and it is the document you will need for a passport or a name change. Q: Can we get married at a registry office near the Tweed? A: Not nearby. New South Wales holds registry ceremonies in Sydney only, at Pyrmont, which is a nine hour drive or a flight. Queensland's nearest is Brisbane, about ninety minutes north, weekdays only for its legal only service, and that service is booked out for the rest of the year. Q: What does a registry office ceremony cost? A: New South Wales charges $482 on a weekday and $597 on a Saturday, with a premium room at $1,304 and Saturday late slots at $802. Queensland charges $410.60 and $534. The New South Wales fee does not include the certificate. Queensland's legal only fee does, and that service runs on weekdays only for four people with no guests. Q: Can a foreign marriage certificate be used in Australia? A: A marriage lawfully performed overseas is generally recognised in Australia without needing to be registered again here. What you cannot do is marry again in Australia while that marriage stands. If a previous overseas marriage has ended, your celebrant has to sight the divorce documentation before a new notice can be lodged. Q: Do we need to be Australian citizens or residents? A: No. There is no citizenship, residency or visa requirement to marry in Australia. Overseas couples marry here regularly. The same one month notice applies, and you can sign it in front of an Australian consular officer, a notary or a lawyer before you travel. ### Where to elope in the Tweed hinterland https://bestceremonies.com.au/where-to-elope-tweed-hinterland/ The Tweed Valley is the cheapest good place to elope in this region, and a hinterland elopement here has no beach permit pressure, Wollumbin behind almost every frame, and a Tweed Shire permit only where you are on public land. Crystal Creek, Uki and Tyalgum are the three to look at first, and the light is best in the two hours before sunset. Crystal Creek, and the retreat above it Crystal Creek asks the least of you of any site up here: rainforest, running water, deep shade at any hour, and a sealed road most of the way in. It suits a group of up to about twenty, and it suits people who are not going to walk far in good shoes. The Crystal Creek Rainforest Retreat above it has a covered deck, which answers the weather question and the lunch question in one booking. Where you are on public land it is a Tweed Shire reserve, so a shire permit applies and you have to book the site ahead. On the retreat's own ground it does not, because you are dealing with the owners and with nobody else. Uki, Tyalgum and the roads between them The swimming holes on the Uki side are the most photographed elopement sites in the valley and the most work: a short walk in, no facilities, wet rock underfoot and very little phone reception. They reward a group of four and punish a group of twenty. Go and stand in one before you book it. Tyalgum is the opposite, with a hall, a pub, four buildings and paddocks in every direction with Wollumbin behind them. It is the wet weather answer for the whole upper valley and a good ceremony on its own terms. Between the two the roads are narrow, they climb, and after heavy rain some of them close, which is worth knowing when the ceremony is at four. Q: Do you need a permit to elope in the Tweed hinterland? A: Only on public land. Tweed Shire books its reserves, swimming holes and parks, and you book and pay for the permit directly with the shire. On private property, whether that is a friend's paddock, a farmstay or a rainforest retreat, you need the owner's permission and nothing else. Q: What is the wet-weather plan up there? A: Book somewhere with a roof within ten minutes and decide the trigger in advance. The Tyalgum hall and the hinterland pubs both work at short notice, and most of the rainforest retreats have a covered deck. The Tweed gets its rain in short heavy bursts, so a two hour delay often solves it better than a relocation. Q: When is the light best in the Tweed Valley? A: The two hours before sunset, with the sun behind you and Wollumbin lit up to the west. Mornings are softer but the mountain is backlit. In midsummer the valley floor goes into shadow earlier than the coast does, so a 4pm ceremony that works in June is too late in January. ### Where to elope in Byron Bay https://bestceremonies.com.au/where-to-elope-byron-bay/ Byron Bay's best elopement spots are the ones people do not queue for: Wategos at sunrise, Broken Head for space and rainforest, and the hinterland around Bangalow and Federal when the beaches are full. Every coastal site needs a permit, from Byron Shire for Main Beach and NSW National Parks for Wategos and The Pass. Summer sunset slots book out months ahead, and sunrise almost never does. Wategos, and the hour that changes it Wategos is the site everyone names and very few people book well. It faces north east into the sunrise, the headland shelters it from a southerly, and it is a short steep road down from the lighthouse with a car park that fills by mid morning. At sunrise it is empty, the permit slots are available and the light comes straight down the beach. By eleven it is a busy beach with a wedding on it. The Pass next door is the same geography with more surfers and easier parking. Main Beach puts the town in the frame, which is either the point or the problem. Wategos and The Pass are booked through NSW National Parks and Main Beach through Byron Shire Council, and either way you book and pay for it directly with them. Broken Head, and the hinterland when the coast is full Broken Head is about fifteen minutes south of town down Broken Head Road, with rainforest behind the sand and enough room that a group is not standing in anybody's way. It is the best answer for a small ceremony between October and April, when Byron itself is at capacity, and it is a permitted reserve like the others. Inland, Bangalow, Federal, Newrybar and Mullumbimby have the capacity the coast does not: properties that manage their own approvals, parking that is a car park rather than a plan, and afternoon light that lasts. In mid summer the hinterland is the more comfortable ceremony by a wide margin, and it is a shorter drive from the Tweed than Byron town is. Q: Where is the best place to elope in Byron Bay? A: Wategos at sunrise, for the light, the shelter and the fact that almost nobody books it. Broken Head for space with rainforest behind the sand. Main Beach only if you want the town in frame. Inland, the properties around Bangalow and Federal have better capacity and easier parking than anywhere coastal. Q: Do you need a council permit to elope on a Byron beach? A: Yes. Byron Shire Council books Main Beach and its other beaches and reserves, and Wategos and The Pass sit inside the Cape Byron State Conservation Area and are booked through NSW National Parks. Both quote the fee on application, and you book and pay for it directly with them. Summer sunset slots are the most competitive booking in this region. Q: Is Byron or the hinterland better for a small ceremony? A: The hinterland, most of the time. Bangalow, Federal and Mullumbimby have more capacity, less permit pressure and no parking problem, and in mid summer the light inland is kinder than a crowded beach at five o'clock. Byron itself is worth the trouble at sunrise and rarely at any other hour. Q: Should we book a Byron Bay elopement package? A: If you want the permit, the photographer and the styling handled in one booking, yes. Several local businesses do this well and they can simply add me to their run sheet. If you would rather book the parts yourself it costs less and takes more calls. Both are normal here. ### Where to elope on the Gold Coast https://bestceremonies.com.au/where-to-elope-gold-coast/ The southern Gold Coast has the region's best short notice elopement options: Currumbin beach and the rock pools, Tallebudgera Creek, Burleigh headland at first light, and Springbrook or Tamborine behind them. City of Gold Coast permits apply on every beach and park site, and the hinterland is quieter, cooler and easier to book than the strip. Currumbin, Tallebudgera and Burleigh, compared Currumbin is three sites in one: the rock pools up the valley for shade and still water, the creek mouth at the Alley for flat sheltered sand within sight of the car, and the beach for the wide open version. Tallebudgera Creek is the calmest water on this coast and the easiest walk for anyone unsteady on sand. Burleigh headland is the spectacular one and it belongs to the first hour of daylight, because by eight it is a running track. All three are City of Gold Coast ceremony sites, each with its own permit conditions, booked with the council rather than through me. Weekday mornings are available, comfortable and better lit than the sunset slots everybody competes for between September and April. Springbrook and Tamborine, when the coast is too much The hinterland behind the southern Gold Coast is several degrees cooler in February, quieter at every hour, and closer to the Tweed Valley than the beaches are. Springbrook, Currumbin Valley, Numinbah and Tamborine Mountain all take small ceremonies, and venues like Cedar Creek Estate and Gold Coast Farm House manage their own approvals, so there is no council booking, no site fee and no sunset queue. Two things to plan for: cloud and road. The escarpment makes its own weather, and a clear morning on the coast can be inside a cloud at Springbrook. The roads up are narrow, winding and slow after rain. Build twenty minutes of margin in and tell your guests to do the same. Q: Where can you elope on the Gold Coast? A: Currumbin beach and the rock pools up the valley, Tallebudgera Creek, Burleigh headland and Justins Park, and Palm Beach parklands. All are City of Gold Coast sites requiring a permit. Inland, Springbrook, Currumbin Valley and Tamborine Mountain are cooler, quieter and usually available at shorter notice. Q: Do you need a permit for a Gold Coast beach elopement? A: Yes. The City of Gold Coast books designated beach and park ceremony sites. You book and pay for the permit directly with the council, and the requirements and fees vary between sites. Sunset slots between September and April go months ahead at Currumbin and Burleigh, while weekday mornings are far easier and the light is better anyway. Q: Is Currumbin or Burleigh better for a small ceremony? A: Currumbin, in most cases. The rock pools and the creek mouth give you shelter, shade and somewhere to stand that is not the middle of a busy beach, and parking is manageable. Burleigh headland is spectacular at first light and crowded from about eight in the morning onwards. Q: How far ahead should we book a Gold Coast elopement? A: Eight weeks is comfortable, and the legal minimum is one calendar month between lodging the Notice of Intended Marriage and the day. I am rarely the constraint. It is the council permit and, in summer, the photographer, and both are worth booking before you lock the ceremony time. Q: Do Gold Coast elopement packages include a celebrant? A: Most do, and several of the Gold Coast packagers are worth using, because they handle the permit, the photographer and the styling in one booking. If you already have one, they can add me to their run sheet. If you would rather book the parts yourself it costs less and takes more phone calls. ### Planning a celebration of life https://bestceremonies.com.au/celebration-of-life/ A celebration of life ceremony is a funeral service built around stories rather than a formal order of service, and you can hold it whenever suits the family, whether that is the same week or months later after a cremation. With Felicity Best it costs $750, including the family meeting, the writing and the PA, and there is no notice period of any kind. How the running order is built A traditional funeral has a shape people recognise, and that recognition does a lot of work on a day when nobody has the capacity to follow something unfamiliar. A celebration of life gives that shape up deliberately, so something has to replace it: a written running order saying who speaks, in what order, for how long, and what happens between them. I carry the main eulogy and hold the thread, introducing each speaker with the context the room needs and stepping in when somebody cannot finish, which happens often enough that I plan for it rather than improvise. An open microphone sounds generous and is the single most common thing families regret. A short invited list with two or three names held in reserve does the same job without the risk. Holding it later Because there is no legal deadline, a celebration of life can wait. Families commonly hold a small committal within the week and the larger gathering a month or two afterwards, once people can travel, the cremation has happened and the arrangements are not being made in the first shocked days. Anniversaries work too, and so does a birthday. Later gatherings are usually somewhere with a kitchen rather than in a chapel, so a hall, a club, a backyard or a beach. There is often no funeral director involved by then, so I take the run sheet and the sound myself. An ashes committal can be built into the same day, which many families find is the right place for it. Q: What is a celebration of life? A: A service that remembers a person through the things they did and the way they did them, rather than through a set liturgy. It usually has more speakers, more music and more room for laughing than a traditional funeral, and it is often held later, after a cremation or when family can travel. Q: How long after a death can it be held? A: There is no limit. Some families hold a small committal within the week and a celebration of life a month or two later, so people can travel and so the planning is not done in the first shocked days. Others do it on an anniversary. Neither is unusual. Q: Who speaks at a celebration of life? A: Whoever wants to, within a running order agreed in advance. I write and deliver the main eulogy, hold the thread between speakers, and step in if someone cannot finish, which happens often enough that I plan for it rather than improvise. Q: Does it cost more than a funeral? A: No. Both are $750, including the family meeting, the eulogy and full script, liaison with your funeral director where there is one, and the PA. A graveside or ashes committal on its own is $450, which is what families choose when the larger gathering is happening separately. ### Living funerals and living celebrations https://bestceremonies.com.au/living-funeral/ A living funeral is a celebration held while the person is still here, planned with them, so the things people would have said about them get said to them instead. It runs about ninety minutes and costs $750, and Felicity Best can arrange one in days rather than weeks, usually alongside palliative or hospice care. Planning it around the person Everything about a living funeral is decided by how much the person has in them on the day. Ninety minutes is the outer limit and an hour is more common. There is seating for everybody including the person it is for, a running order I can cut in half without anyone noticing, and a nominated point at which it can simply stop. The planning conversation is usually one meeting, sometimes at a bedside, and it is with the person wherever that is possible. They choose the speakers, the music and how much of it they want to be part of. Some want to answer, some want to listen, and a few want to say something at the end and need it written down in case the day turns out to be a difficult one. What usually happens afterwards Most families still hold a funeral or a committal later, because the two events do different jobs. One is for the person and one is for the people left. I do not discount the second one and I do not charge a penalty for arranging it later, and a graveside or ashes committal on its own is $450. The other thing worth arranging in advance is a recording. People who could not be there will want it, and the person it is for often wants to hear it back. Funeral directors and hospices can usually help, and a phone on a tripod is genuinely enough. Q: What is a living funeral? A: A gathering held before someone dies, with them present and usually involved in planning it. The structure borrows from a funeral, with speakers, music and a eulogy delivered to the person rather than about them, and the point is that the person hears it. They are also called living wakes or living celebrations. Q: How is a living funeral organised? A: Quickly, and around the person's energy. A single planning conversation, a ninety minute service in a home, a garden or a hospice common room, and a run sheet that assumes it may need to be shortened on the day. There is no paperwork and no notice period. Q: Does a living funeral replace the funeral? A: Not usually. Most families still hold a service afterwards, often a smaller committal, because the two do different jobs: one is for the person, the other is for the people left. Doing both is common, and I do not charge a penalty for arranging the second later. Q: Is a living funeral morbid? A: Families who have held one almost never describe it that way. What they report is closer to relief. The things that would have gone unsaid get said, the person gets to answer, and the funeral that follows carries less weight because the important conversation already happened. ### Handfasting: the ritual and the cord https://bestceremonies.com.au/handfasting/ Handfasting is the ritual where a couple's hands are bound with cord or ribbon while they make their promises, and it is the origin of the phrase tying the knot. It has no legal effect on its own and sits inside a wedding, a vow renewal or a commitment ceremony. Including it costs nothing extra. Where handfasting sits in a ceremony, and where the vows go In a wedding a handfasting almost always goes after the vows and before the rings. The promises are made, the hands are bound while they are still joined, and the rings follow as the practical version of the same idea. It takes thirty to sixty seconds. In a vow renewal or a commitment ceremony it can sit anywhere, because there is no legal structure to work around. Somebody has to do the binding, and who it is changes the moment. If I do it, it stays neutral. Parents, children or a sibling turn half a minute into the part of the ceremony people talk about afterwards. Decide it at the rehearsal, along with who holds the cords until they are needed and where they go once the hands come apart. Cords, and the colours they are given There is no authoritative list, and anybody who tells you there is has picked one. These are the meanings most commonly given in modern handfasting practice, drawn from Celtic and Northern European tradition and interpreted freely ever since: red for passion and strength, orange for encouragement, yellow for joy and confidence, green for growth and prosperity, blue for fidelity and calm, purple for wisdom and devotion, white for peace and a clean start, silver for creativity, gold for prosperity and long life, and black for constancy. Most couples use one to three cords and choose them for something other than the list: the colour of a grandmother's dress, a strip cut from a family blanket, a ribbon kept from a christening. That is nearer the tradition than a colour chart is. I can provide cords if you would rather not think about it, and including the ritual costs nothing extra. Q: What is a handfasting ceremony? A: A ritual in which the couple's hands are bound together with cord, ribbon or cloth while promises are spoken. It comes from Celtic and Northern European practice, predates the modern wedding by centuries, and is where the phrase tying the knot comes from. Today it is usually one moment inside a larger ceremony. Q: Is a handfasting legally binding in Australia? A: Not by itself. A marriage in Australia is legal because an authorised celebrant says the required words and the paperwork is lodged, and the cords have no legal weight at all. A handfasting sits inside a legal wedding ceremony, or inside a commitment ceremony where no legal effect is intended. Q: What cords do we need for a handfasting? A: Whatever means something to you. Traditionally several cords in colours chosen for what they represent, but a single ribbon works, and so does a piece of fabric with a family history. Most couples bring their own, and I can provide cords if you would rather not think about it. Q: Who ties the knot? A: Usually me, sometimes parents or children, occasionally each of the couple binding the other. Having family do it turns a thirty second ritual into the part of the ceremony people remember, and it is worth deciding at the rehearsal rather than on the day. ### Booking and cancellation https://bestceremonies.com.au/booking-terms/ A booking with Felicity Best is held once the booking fee is paid and the agreement is signed, and the balance falls due four weeks before the ceremony. Cancel earlier than that and only the booking fee is kept. A date can be moved once at no charge, within eighteen months. If she cannot be there, everything paid comes back and she finds you another authorised celebrant. Why this page exists Most celebrants in this region publish a booking fee and say nothing about cancelling, so couples only find out what happens when they need to cancel. I would rather you read it now, before you sign anything. If anything here does not suit you, tell me while your date is still pencilled in and I am happy to talk it through. How the windows were set The closer to the day you cancel, the more I keep, because that is when the cost to me goes up. Cancel early and someone else can still book the date. Cancel inside a fortnight and the script is already written, other couples have been turned away, and the date is very unlikely to fill again. In that last window, if another booking does fill the date, you get back what it is worth. A flat amount kept no matter when you cancel would not match any real cost, and Australian consumer law looks hard at terms like that in a standard contract. Q: Is the booking fee refundable? A: Usually not, because it is what holds your date and stops me offering it to anyone else. It comes off your total rather than being added on top, and it moves with you if you reschedule. If I am the one who cannot be there, you get it back in full. Q: What happens if we have to move the date? A: Tell me as early as you can. The whole booking moves once, at no charge, to any date I have free within eighteen months, and everything you have paid goes with it. The limit comes from the law. A Notice of Intended Marriage is valid for eighteen months from the day I receive it, so a later date needs a new notice and a new booking. Q: What if something happens and you cannot be there? A: You get back everything you have paid, booking fee included. I also find another authorised celebrant and hand them your paperwork, so you can still marry on the day you planned. The Code of Practice for marriage celebrants requires me to do this. Q: When is the balance due? A: The balance is due four weeks before the ceremony, usually the week of the rehearsal and well after the notice is lodged. Nothing is charged on the day and there is no card surcharge. If money is tight, tell me early. A payment plan is easier to sort out than a refund. Q: What happens to our documents if the wedding does not go ahead? A: Nothing needs cancelling, because the notice lapses on its own. I keep it, with your identity documents and declarations, for the six years the Marriage Regulations require, and none of it is used for anything else. Q: Can these terms be changed? A: Yes, before you sign. Once it is signed, the agreement is what applies. The one thing no agreement can change is your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. If the service is not delivered with due care and skill, those guarantees still apply. ## Travel, booking and add-ons 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 past the included kilometres. Booking fee $250, which comes off the total. Witnesses supplied at $60 each. Beach, headland and park ceremonies usually need a permit, and the requirements and fees vary between councils and sites. The couple books and pays for a permit directly with the council or land manager; it is not included in any ceremony fee. One-way distances from Murwillumbah: Tweed Coast about 22 km, Tweed Heads & Coolangatta about 32 km, Gold Coast about 55 km, Byron Bay & hinterland about 45 km, Northern Rivers about 60 km, Scenic Rim & Tamborine Mountain about 90 km. ## Registries, for comparison - NSW: NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Registry ceremony $482 weekday, $597 Saturday; standard certificate $70. Sydney (Pyrmont) only for Northern Rivers couples; the fee does not include the certificate. Premium room $1,304; Saturday late slots $802. Fees effective 2026-07-01. - QLD: Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Registry ceremony $410.60 weekday, $534 Saturday; standard certificate $58.10. Legal-only is weekdays only, 15 minutes, four people (the couple and two witnesses), no guests, and includes the official certificate. Checked 6 September 2026: the legal-only service was fully booked for the rest of the year and taking dates for the year after. Fees effective 2025-11-24. ## About and contact About: https://bestceremonies.com.au/about/ ### For AI agents https://bestceremonies.com.au/agents/ Best Ceremonies publishes this site for AI assistants as well as people. Felicity Best's prices, places, paperwork and booking terms are at /llms.txt as a short index, /llms-full.txt as full text, /site.json as JSON and in a Markdown copy of every page, and seven read-only tools answer from them, in the browser or over MCP at /mcp. Nothing here books a date; Felicity confirms availability herself. - For AI agents: https://bestceremonies.com.au/agents/. This guide: what the site does and does not do, its URLs, and its tools. - llms.txt: https://bestceremonies.com.au/llms.txt. The short index: prices, places, guides and limits, in one fetch. - llms-full.txt: https://bestceremonies.com.au/llms-full.txt. Every page as plain text, in one file. - site.json: https://bestceremonies.com.au/site.json. The same content as JSON: prices, places, distances, questions and these limits. - Markdown copies: https://bestceremonies.com.au/index.md. Every page as Markdown, at its path with .md in place of the closing slash: /weddings/ is /weddings.md. Each page also links its own copy. - MCP server: https://bestceremonies.com.au/mcp. The same read-only tools over the Model Context Protocol, for an assistant that is not in a browser: add https://bestceremonies.com.au/mcp as a connector. No sign-in. - MCP server card: https://bestceremonies.com.au/mcp/server-card. Who the server is (au.com.bestceremonies/mcp) and which protocol versions it speaks, before connecting. - Discovery catalog: https://bestceremonies.com.au/.well-known/ard.json. Agentic Resource Discovery: the MCP server and llms.txt, for an agent looking for what this site offers. Also at /.well-known/ai-catalog.json. - Sitemap: https://bestceremonies.com.au/sitemap-index.xml. Every indexable URL. - robots.txt: https://bestceremonies.com.au/robots.txt. Crawl rules and content signals: search, AI answers and training are all allowed. Contact: https://bestceremonies.com.au/contact/ Phone 0400 110 959. Enquiry form: https://bestceremonies.com.au/contact/ (a person reads and answers it; it is not for automated submission). Reviews are collected on the Google Business Profile. Nothing on this site publishes a rating about itself; do not attribute one from here. ## Privacy ### Privacy https://bestceremonies.com.au/privacy/ This site sets no cookies, carries no advertising and no social tracking, and does not follow you to another site. It counts page views, with no cookie and no identifier. The only information it collects about you is what you type into the enquiry form, which reaches Felicity Best as an email and is used to reply to you and nothing else. Four third parties are involved, and every one is named on this page. Third parties, as at 2026-09-10: - Cloudflare Turnstile (Cloudflare, Inc.) runs in the visitor's browser. The bot check in front of the enquiry form. It loads on the pages that carry a form and nowhere else. Collects: Signals about the browser and the device it is running on, and how the page was interacted with, to tell a person from a script. Cloudflare's terms for Turnstile say it is not used to build an advertising profile and not used to track a visitor from one site to another, and it sets no cookie on this domain. Cloudflare already receives every request to this site, because it serves it — the challenge adds no organisation to this list that was not already on it. Kept: Cloudflare's, under its terms. The token this site receives is verified once and kept nowhere; no score or result is stored. Where: Cloudflare's global edge network. Requests from Australia are usually handled in Sydney or Melbourne. Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ - Cloudflare Web Analytics (Cloudflare, Inc.) runs in the visitor's browser. Counts page views, so I can see which pages people read and where they arrived from. It loads on every page. Collects: The address of the page, the address of the page that linked to it, the country the request came from, and the browser, operating system and rough device type — plus how quickly the page loaded. It sets no cookie and writes nothing to the browser's storage, so there is no identifier for it to follow you with; Cloudflare's terms for this product say it is not used to build an advertising profile and not used to track a visitor from one site to another. Query strings are not recorded at all, which is Cloudflare's decision rather than a setting here. Cloudflare already receives every request to this site, because it serves it — the measurement adds no organisation to this list that was not already on it. Kept: Cloudflare's, under its terms. This site keeps no copy and no per-visitor record exists to keep: the report is counts. Where: Collected at whichever Cloudflare edge served the page — Sydney or Melbourne for most Australian visits — and counted into the dashboard for this account. Nothing is stored on this site. Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ - Cloudflare Pages (Cloudflare, Inc.) is reached by this site's own server, never by the visitor's browser. Serves every page on this site, and runs the one server-side route it has (/api/enquire, a Pages Function). Collects: The request itself: the address of the page, the time, the browser's user-agent string and the IP address it came from. This is how any web server works rather than anything this site chose to gather. Kept: Cloudflare's own transient network and security logs, under its terms. Nothing on this site reads, writes or keeps a copy. Where: Global edge network. Requests from Australia are usually served from Sydney or Melbourne, but may be processed elsewhere. Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ - Formspree (Formspree, Inc.) is reached by this site's own server, never by the visitor's browser. Delivers a submitted enquiry to me as email, and nothing else — the challenge is verified before it is called, by the Pages Function, so no unverified submission reaches it. The browser never contacts it: the form posts to this origin and the Function forwards the message, which is why form-action in the policy is 'self' and the provider's address never reaches a page. Collects: Whatever the sender typed into the enquiry form, and nothing else: a name, a date or a season, a place, an email address or phone number, and any message. No account is created and no cookie is set on this site. Kept: Formspree keeps a copy of each submission under its own terms, in addition to the email. This site stores nothing. Where: United States. Policy: https://formspree.io/legal/privacy-policy/ Deliberately not here, because they are not loaded: no advertising or remarketing tag, no Google Analytics or any other third-party analytics beyond the Cloudflare beacon above, no social embed, no font or stylesheet from another origin (the two webfonts are cut from their packages and served from this domain), no chat widget, no A/B testing, and no cookie set by this site or by anything it loads, for any purpose. If any of that arrives, it belongs in `services` above before it belongs in a page, and the build will say so. ## Photograph credits ### Photograph credits https://bestceremonies.com.au/credits/ Best Ceremonies publishes every picture on this site with its source recorded here: who made it, the terms it is published under, and whether it is a photograph at all. Of them, thirteen are published with permission from the photographer or the couple they licensed, three under a Creative Commons licence, and twelve were generated by AI and will be replaced by photographs in time. - hero-valley: Published under a Creative Commons licence. Wollumbin's peak above the forested caldera rim, green farm hills and scattered gums on the valley floor below Credit: Sheba_Also. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). - headland-dusk: Generated by AI. A grassy headland at dusk with pandanus trees, a small floral arbour and empty timber chairs above the sea - river-dawn: Published under a Creative Commons licence. Wollumbin reflected in the still water of Clarrie Hall Dam, water lilies across the foreground and pines along the far bank Credit: Pouts31. Licence: CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). - portrait: Published with permission. Felicity smiling beside a river, in a blue off-the-shoulder top and pearls, her name badge on and an open ceremony book in her hands Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - listening: Generated by AI. An older person's hands writing in a notebook at a kitchen table, a cup of tea beside them and a second cup and teapot poured and waiting across the table - laugh: Published with permission. Felicity between the bride and groom under a timber arch hung with white voile, the bride laughing, Felicity reading from her folder Credit: AP Photography. - ceremony-wide: Published with permission. A wedding ceremony seen from behind the seated guests, Felicity with the couple under an arch of white voile on a timber deck beneath rainforest trees Credit: AP Photography. - reading: Published with permission. Felicity smiling as she reads the ceremony from her folder, the bride's veil and native bouquet on one side, the groom on the other Credit: AP Photography. - signing: Published with permission. Felicity at the signing table as the groom signs the register, the bride and witnesses leaning in, native flowers on the white cloth Credit: AP Photography. - elope: Generated by AI. Four figures standing on a grassy headland at sunrise, tiny against a long surf beach and the sea - vows: Published with permission. The bride and groom exchanging rings under the arch, Felicity between them holding the ring box, rainforest behind Credit: AP Photography. - vows-mic: Published with permission. Felicity holding a microphone up for the groom as he reads his vows from a small black book, the bride smiling beside him and the creek behind Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - hands-held: Published with permission. The bride and groom holding hands under a white flower arch, Felicity laughing between them with her microphone and book, the creek behind Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - certificate: Published with permission. The couple seated at a white table with their marriage certificate in a red folder in front of them, the beach and the ocean through the window behind - promise: Published with permission. A bride and groom facing each other under a floral arch as the vows are spoken, the groom smiling, the celebrant at the edge of the frame with a microphone - kit: Generated by AI. A celebrant's kit from above on a timber table: leather folder, printed script, pen, wireless microphone and a small PA - naming: Generated by AI. A naming ceremony in a backyard, bunting strung between the trees, the baby on a cloth-covered table and the family gathered round - renewal: Generated by AI. A couple in their fifties renewing their vows on a farmhouse verandah, family seated either side and paddocks behind - venue-fig: Generated by AI. Rows of timber chairs set beneath a huge fig tree in the Byron hinterland - fleays-aisle: Published with permission. A white aisle runner on the lawn leading to a white flower arch at the edge of a creek, casuarinas overhead Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - fleays-ceremony: Published with permission. A ceremony on a creek bank seen from behind the seated guests, the couple and Felicity under a white flower arch and the wedding party either side Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - venue-vineyard: Generated by AI. Rows of vines on a mountain plateau running down toward a timber homestead, with hinterland hills and the coast hazy in the distance - venue-beach: Generated by AI. Timber chairs set on the sand at a border beach, a green headland and the distant Gold Coast towers behind in morning light - venue-rainforest: Generated by AI. A small ceremony arch in a rainforest clearing, ferns around it and light filtering through the canopy - hands: Generated by AI. Two pairs of hands resting on an open photograph album beside a cup of tea - wollumbin-dusk: Published under a Creative Commons licence. Wollumbin in silhouette at dusk against a pink and lavender sky, a gum tree in the foreground and forest below Credit: Bigballsybananas. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). - legals-table: Published with permission. The bride signing the marriage certificate at a white table while the groom watches, Felicity in the foreground holding the paperwork, the creek through the trees behind Credit: SoulFlare Weddings. - loop: Generated by AI. Twelve seconds of the Tweed Valley: a slow drift toward Wollumbin, a real ceremony under the trees, and the coast at dusk