Pat Mac Anally · The Irish Wedding Celebrant
A private garden. No venue fee.
Eight people, a hand-tended garden in Benowa, and a celebrant who has already met you three times. It isn't a venue for hire — it's Pat's own garden, and it comes with the ceremony.
You can have the garden, but only for a wedding Pat is conducting. It's his home. He doesn't rent it to couples who booked another celebrant, and it isn't available for parties, receptions or photo shoots. The garden comes with the ceremony, or it doesn't come at all.
That one condition is what keeps it free. No hire fee, no bond, no minimum spend, no hourly rate — because Pat isn't running a venue. He's a registered marriage celebrant who happens to have somewhere lovely to stand. If you want a small Gold Coast wedding with no venue contract attached to it, that is the entire offer.
The two of you, two witnesses, and around three or four other guests. Call it eight people. That's Pat's own limit and it isn't negotiable — the garden is a private home with no facilities for a larger group and no room to seat a crowd.
If your number is fifteen, twenty or fifty, the garden is the wrong answer and Pat will say so on the phone. He'll still marry you — at a beach, a park, a hinterland lookout, a hired venue or your own backyard — and the packages are identical. Only the location changes.
Eight sounds small until you're standing in it. Nobody is watching from row nine. No processional to walk, no microphone, no audience to perform for. Couples who dread being looked at pick this on purpose — and then spend the whole ten minutes forgetting anyone else is there.
No hire fee, no bond, no minimum spend. The garden is included with the ceremony.
Benowa is Pat's own address, so no travel fee applies at all.
The package you choose, three meetings included, all legal work lodged.
So a legal micro wedding in the garden lands at $500 to $600, all in. There's nothing else to add, no deposit, and no Saturday loading — the price you're quoted is the price you pay. See what's in each package →
Worth knowing before you picture it, because a garden that photographs well and a garden that works aren't always the same garden.
What it isn't: a reception space. There's no catering, no bar, no marquee and nowhere for a sit-down lunch. Couples generally get married in the garden and then go somewhere nearby to eat. Benowa sits minutes from Ashmore, Bundall and the Nerang River, and a few minutes further from Surfers, so a table for eight after the ceremony is an easy thing to book — Pat won't recommend a restaurant, on the grounds that he's a celebrant and not a food critic, but he'll tell you how long it takes to get anywhere.
How a garden micro wedding works
Often in the garden itself, so you see the place before you commit to it. The Notice of Intended Marriage is lodged at this meeting, which starts the one-calendar-month legal clock.
Written for you and sent before the day. Cross out anything that isn't you. Eight people means every line is heard — so every line has to earn its place.
In the garden, with the people you actually wanted there. Pat lodges everything with Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages afterwards.
By the third meeting Pat isn't a stranger reading your names off a form. That's the whole point of the Old Friend Method, and it matters more at eight people than at eighty.
Tell Pat your number on the first call and he'll tell you which one you're actually describing. Most couples find they've been using the wrong word for months.
You still get married — but be clear on this one, because most venue pages fudge it. Pat's garden is not a wet-weather venue. It's an outdoor garden at a private home, and there's no hall, marquee or covered area to move a wedding party into.
If the weather turns, Pat finds somewhere covered nearby and moves it. He doesn't hand out umbrellas and he doesn't cancel. With eight people, moving is a five-minute problem instead of a catastrophe — one more thing a small wedding quietly buys you.
One calendar month is the legal minimum between lodging your Notice and getting married. That's the only real deadline in a micro wedding — there's no venue to hold, no caterer to confirm and no eighteen-month runway.
So there's one question worth asking first: is your date free? Forty seconds to find out.
Yes, if Pat is your celebrant. There's no hire fee, no bond and no minimum spend, and because Benowa is his own address there's no travel fee either. You pay for the ceremony package and nothing else.
No. The garden is Pat's home and it's only available for weddings he's conducting himself.
The couple, two witnesses and around three or four others — roughly eight people. There are no facilities for a larger group.
No. The garden is for the ceremony. There's no catering, no bar and nowhere to seat a meal, so couples usually go somewhere nearby afterwards.
Benowa, on the Gold Coast — a few minutes from Ashmore, Bundall and Surfers Paradise. Pat gives the address when you book.
Yes. The first of your three meetings often happens there, which means you see the place before you commit to it.
Identical. Same Marriage Act, same Notice of Intended Marriage, same registration with Queensland Births, Deaths and Marriages. Guest numbers have nothing to do with it. The legal questions, answered →
Yes, and weekdays are usually the easiest dates to get.
48 photographs from real Gold Coast weddings → · 53 reviews, in full →