Wedding ceremonies · Byron Bay & hinterland · NSW
Wedding celebrant, Byron Bay & hinterland
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.
What it costs in Byron Bay
| What you get | Mon–Thu | Fri–Sun |
|---|---|---|
| Wedding ceremony 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. | $950 | $1,200 |
| Friend officiates, celebrant does the legals The legal requirements taken care of, your ceremony prepared with you, coaching for the person you have chosen, everything done correctly on the day. | $950 | $1,200 |
Australian dollars, no GST. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included, whichever gets you there; beyond both it is $1 per kilometre, round trip. Booking fee $250, which comes off the total. Witnesses supplied at $60 each. Council permits for beach and park ceremonies are booked and paid for directly with the council, and are not included.
Byron Bay is about 40 minutes from Murwillumbah. Travel within 80 km or an hour and a half of Murwillumbah is included; beyond that it is $1 per kilometre round trip. Allow about four months for a weekend date in season.
Venues
Where in Byron Bay
- Bangalow
- Mullumbimby
- Brunswick Heads
- The Farm Byron Bay
- Fig Tree Restaurant
- Ancora
- Broken Head
- Wategos Beach
Ceremonies on public beaches, reserves and parks usually need a permit, which you book and pay for directly with the council or land manager. The requirements and fees vary between councils and sites, and they are not included in the ceremony fee.
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.
The paperwork, in NSW
A ceremony in Byron Bay is recorded by the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, because a marriage is registered in the state it took place in. A standard certificate there is $70, and its own registry ceremony is $482 on a weekday. What changes across the border, and the NOIM in full.
Questions
Questions people ask
- Where do people get married in Byron Bay?
- 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.
- Why is a Byron wedding celebrant cheaper from Murwillumbah?
- 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.
Get in touch
Check my date
Send the date, or the season, and where for wedding ceremonies in Byron Bay. I will tell you whether it is free and exactly what it costs. No obligation.
Most days, 9am to 7pm.