Um.. not sure about the courthouse, if you can do that in Australia (whether its a USA thing?).. but you can go to the registry office and be married. DH and i did that. You have to go in to your closest registry office with your fiance and lodge an Intent to Marry form (make sure you have the right amount of ID with you). Then while there you book when you want to be married.. which has to be at least 30 days from when you lodged the form and no more than i think 2 years (? its either 1 or 2 years). You can have 8 people come to the ceremony. The one in Sydney is quite nice i thought, you have it in a lovely set out room, can bring flowers or whatever.. and you basically have a wedding/marriage ceremony that you would have at a normal wedding at the registry office. We invited family and then had a lovely lunch afterwards. We didnt want a big wedding at the time as i was 7 months pregnant.

Hope this helps you and your friend