Pat Mac Anally · The Irish Wedding Celebrant

Where Pat Marries Couples

One drive. Five different sets of rules.

From Benowa you can reach a free beach permit, a $134 park booking, a national park threshold, a New South Wales council and a piece of private land where nobody's permission is needed at all — inside about an hour. Where you stand decides who you have to ask. This page sorts out which one you're dealing with, and what Pat charges to get there.

Check if your date is free Call Pat — 0409 120 350

Registered celebrant since 2016 · No. A18208 · 60–70 weddings a year · Travel priced before you book · ★ 5.0 on Google

Nobody tells you that the rules change every twenty minutes

Couples plan a Gold Coast wedding as though the Gold Coast were one place with one rulebook. It isn't. The authority you answer to changes with the ground you're standing on, and the boundaries are invisible.

Currumbin Beach and a council park four hundred metres inland are two different applications, with two different fees, run by the same council. Springbrook's lookouts answer to Queensland Parks and Wildlife, not to the city. Kingscliff is a different state. And a canal lawn at Hope Island answers to nobody but the person who owns it.

None of this is difficult once you know which box you're in. It is only expensive when you find out late — four weeks late, in the case of a beach permit. So here is the whole map, in the order that actually matters: who has to say yes, what it costs, and how long they take.

Who you need permission from, by where you stand

Where the ceremony is	Who says yes	What it costs	How long it takes
Private land — a house, acreage, a canal lawn, a gated estate	Nobody official. The owner, or the body corporate	Nothing	No lead time — but get the answer in writing
A Gold Coast beach — Currumbin, Coolangatta and the other permitted beaches	City of Gold Coast, beach wedding permit	Free	Apply at least four weeks ahead
A Gold Coast council park or reserve	City of Gold Coast, park wedding booking	$134, non-refundable once confirmed	Book ahead; covers up to three hours
National park — Springbrook falls, Tamborine lookouts	Queensland Parks and Wildlife	Permit needed above 40 people in day-use areas, or above 15 off-track	Allow fifteen business days
Tweed Shire, New South Wales — Kingscliff, Tweed Heads	Tweed Shire Council, casual park hire	Not published — ring them for the current schedule	Lodge well ahead; ceremony only, no reception
A licensed venue, winery or resort	The venue. No council permit at all	Whatever the venue charges	Their calendar, not the council's
Pat's own garden at Benowa	Pat	No venue fee, no travel fee	Up to eight people, weddings Pat is celebrating

Council and national park conditions do change. Pat confirms the rules for your specific spot with the authority at the time you book rather than working from a figure on a website — including this one.

Two questions settle it

You can work out your own answer in about ten seconds, without ringing anybody.

Is the ground private or public? If it is private — someone's home, an estate, a winery, a resort, a farm — you are finished. There is no council application, no fee and no waiting period. The owner's rules are the only rules, and the job is to get those in writing early.
If it's public, who owns that particular piece of it? Sand on a Gold Coast beach is a free permit. Grass in a Gold Coast park is a $134 booking. A waterfall or a lookout is usually national park and Queensland Parks and Wildlife. South of the border it is Tweed Shire and a different form altogether.

That second question is the one that catches people, because the two are often a hundred metres apart and look identical. The reserve behind a beach is not the beach. The Currumbin page walks through that boundary in detail →

The destinations

Seven places, written one at a time

Each of these is written from its own council, its own permit reality and its own weather. They are not the same page with the name swapped — the rules genuinely differ, and so does what goes wrong.

Free beach permit · $50 travel

Currumbin

Elephant Rock, the Alley and the creek mouth. The council permit costs nothing but wants four weeks, and the tide decides what time you stand there.

National park thresholds · $100 travel

Gold Coast Hinterland

Springbrook, Numinbah, Canungra and Currumbin Valley. Queensland Parks and Wildlife country, and rainforest that takes your light and your sound.

Two authorities · $100 travel

Tamborine Mountain

Gallery Walk, winery lawns and rainforest guesthouses. The falls are national park; the venues need no permit at all. Scenic Rim above, Gold Coast below.

New South Wales · $75 travel

Kingscliff

A Queensland celebrant can marry you in NSW — marriage is Commonwealth law. Tweed Shire wants a permit for any public ground, and daylight saving moves your hour.

$134 park booking · $50 travel

Coomera

Fifteen kilometres from the surf, so none of the beach advice applies. A tidal river, acreage blocks, and the council park booking set out in full.

Usually no permit · $50 travel

Hope Island

Canals, golf and gated estates — almost all private land, so almost never a permit. What replaces it is the guest list at the security gate.

No venue fee · No travel fee

Pat's garden, Benowa

Pat's own hand-tended garden for up to eight people. Available only for ceremonies he is celebrating — it is not hired out on its own.

Somewhere not on this list? Most of Pat's weddings are. He marries 60 to 70 couples a year across the Gold Coast, the hinterland, the Tweed and Brisbane, and the page you are reading covers the places couples ask about most — not the limit of where he goes.

What Pat charges to get there

A fixed figure per destination, worked out on the drive there and back from Benowa — not a per-kilometre rate, and not a number that moves after you book.

No charge. Benowa, Bundall, Ashmore, Southport, Main Beach, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Nerang.
$50 — the outer Gold Coast. South to Robina, Mermaid, Burleigh Heads, Palm Beach, Currumbin and Coolangatta; north through Helensvale, Mount Nathan, Pacific Pines and Hope Island, as far as Coomera.
$75 — the Tweed. Tweed Heads, Kingscliff and the Tweed coast.
$100 — the Scenic Rim, Tamborine and the far north. Tamborine Mountain, Canungra, Beaudesert, Numinbah Valley, Springbrook and the wider Scenic Rim; and anything north of Coomera, including Pimpama and Ormeau.
$150 — Brisbane. Brisbane and the southern suburbs.
Anywhere else. Settled on the phone when you check your date, before anything is booked.

Because it is priced on the drive rather than the map, the southern beaches sit lower than you would expect and the range sits higher. In the full-service tier travel is included outright and none of this applies. The full package prices are here →

No deposit, no Saturday loading, no GST line. The price you're quoted is the price you pay.

Wherever it is

Three meetings. One legal deadline. The same celebrant.

You meet Pat.

Your Notice of Intended Marriage is lodged here, starting the one-calendar-month legal clock. Pat also asks who controls the ground you have chosen, because that answer sets every other deadline on the list above.

II.

You read your ceremony.

Written for you, sent early, and yours to cut. What the place does to the ceremony — wind, water, rainforest, a crowd on a public beach — is built into how it's written.

III.

You get married.

Pat arrives before your guests with the signing table and every document, and lodges it all 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 Old Friend Method.

Is Pat free on your date?

Two clocks run on every wedding: the calendar month between lodging your Notice of Intended Marriage and the day itself, and whatever the ground you have chosen needs — four weeks for a beach, fifteen business days for a national park, nothing at all for private land.

Both are easy if you start now. Forty seconds to check the date.

Questions about where you can get married

Can you get married anywhere on the Gold Coast?

Almost anywhere, provided whoever controls that ground agrees. An authorised celebrant may solemnise a marriage anywhere in Australia — there is no rule limiting it to venues or registries. What varies is permission: private land needs the owner's, a Gold Coast beach needs a free council permit, a council park needs a $134 booking, and a national park has attendance thresholds.

Which Gold Coast beaches allow wedding ceremonies?

Not all of them. Currumbin is one of the permitted beaches. Ceremonies are not permitted at Justins Park at Burleigh, Echo Beach at Tallebudgera, or the Surfers Paradise beach. The City of Gold Coast keeps the current list, and the application is free but wants four weeks.

Do we need a permit to get married on private property?

No. The council permit system applies to public land only. On a private home, acreage, canal lawn, estate or licensed venue there is no application, no fee and no lead time. The property's own rules replace them — a body corporate, an estate manager or the owner — and those are usually easier but unwritten, so ask early and get the answer in writing.

What is the difference between a beach permit and a park booking?

They are two separate City of Gold Coast processes for two kinds of ground. The beach wedding permit is free and applies to the sand. A park wedding booking costs $134, covers up to three hours including setup, and is non-refundable once confirmed. The reserve behind a beach is a park, not a beach, even when it is a few metres away.

Can a Queensland celebrant marry us in New South Wales?

Yes. Marriage is Commonwealth law, so an authorised celebrant may officiate in any state or territory. Pat regularly marries couples at Kingscliff and across the Tweed. The local permit rules are the council's, and in the Tweed that is a casual park hire application through Tweed Shire.

How far will Pat travel for a wedding?

The published bands run from no charge around Benowa out to $150 for Brisbane, with $50 across the outer Gold Coast, $75 into the Tweed and $100 for the Scenic Rim, Tamborine and north of Coomera. Anywhere beyond that is settled on the phone before you book. Travel is included outright in the full-service tier.

Does it cost more to get married somewhere further away?

Only the travel figure, and only on the lower packages. The ceremony price does not change with the location — $500, $550 or $600 whether it is ten minutes away or on a mountain. There is no Saturday loading and no peak-season pricing.

What if the council says no, or the permit doesn't come through?

You still get married. The marriage itself needs a celebrant, two witnesses and the paperwork — not a permit — so the fallback is a different piece of ground, usually private, decided in advance rather than on the morning. This is one of the reasons Pat asks where you are standing at the first meeting rather than the last. More on the legal side →

If you already know the shape of your day

Elopement packages — just the two of you and two witnesses, at a lookout, a beach or Pat's garden.
A micro wedding at Benowa — up to eight people, no venue fee and no travel fee.
Packages and prices — what is in each of the three, and what the registry charges instead.
What happens in the ceremony — vows, readings, music and the legal words.

Proof

What a Pat Mac Anally ceremony actually looks like.

48 photographs from real Gold Coast weddings → · 53 reviews, in full →

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