How much did/does your officiant cost?

[robbie3982]

We''ve started looking for officiants. My parents don''t want us to get married in a church and FI''s family doesn''t care if we get married in a synagogue, so that''s what we started looking into. My rabbi won''t do an interfaith marriage (even though half of the members of the synagogue are married to non Jews

) and so far the others we''ve called want like $1000! That''s way out of our budget for the officiant! I was expecting a few hundred... One wants $100 for a consultation fee before he''ll even tell us his prices. How ridiculous is that???

So, were my expectations completely out of whack or are these rabbis'' prices ridiculous???

 

[TravelingGal]

Ours is my cousin in law...and is an invited guest to our wedding. we haven''t discussed fees (probably because there aren''t any)...but I am going to give him about $300 and bought him a Tommy Bahamas shirt to wear to our wedding.

 

[ellaila]

Wow, $1000?! Yes, that''s insane! Ours -- a hospice chaplain and all-around "life celebrant"

-- is $400.

 

[E B]

Ours costs $250.

 

[jcrow]

i think it's, again, all relative. all said and done ours is $1000. but, it's the cathedral, i'm not actual a member of that specific church so that fee was $750. plus some of that is for the music. you have to pay and have the organ- no way around it. on top of the $1000, $250 is a deposit that we get back if all the guests behave. however, they did note that if within the given time frame we don't come to pick up the $250, they will take it as a donation to the church.

don't guess any of this helps, but i thought i'd share.

eta: i know this doesn't make much sense, but if we were members of the cathedral then the $750 would be waived. don't know if there would be an officiant fee instead?

 

[robbie3982]

I wish FI wasn''t against my original idea of just having one of my best friends get ordained and marry us. Now my mom is suggesting non-denominational ministers. I just don''t see the point in paying hundreds of dollars to someone I don''t know, who isn''t of either of our religions when we could have a friend do the same thing for free and it would be so much more meaningful.

 

[decodelighted]

$400 ... we''d budgeted about $250 but I think we just made that # out of the air!

 

[FireGoddess]

$250 + a tip Universal Life Minister. Ours was an interfaith marriage.

I called SEVERAL who wanted $1000 and up!

 

[AmberWaves]

This is something we''re still going back and forth about- I want a friend to do it for us, and FI says no.

I''m with you in the idea that it would make so much more sense, and MEAN more. But whatever, religion/ceremony is HIS area, since I''m no religion. As for price, I have no idea, but this one church that is GORGEOUS in Santa Monica here was 2k- to just USE the hall!! Come on! Not even with the officiant. It''s just insane.

 

[ponderer]

WOW

I thought ours was expensive, but now i feel so much better.

$300 donation to the church
$100 gift to the priest

 

[robbie3982]

Date: 9/13/2006 5:37:42 PM
Author: AmberWaves
This is something we''re still going back and forth about- I want a friend to do it for us, and FI says no.

I''m with you in the idea that it would make so much more sense, and MEAN more. But whatever, religion/ceremony is HIS area, since I''m no religion. As for price, I have no idea, but this one church that is GORGEOUS in Santa Monica here was 2k- to just USE the hall!! Come on! Not even with the officiant. It''s just insane.

wow! That''s expensive! There''s a gorgeous church that I would''ve loved to have it in downtown if my mom wasn''t so anti-having it in a church and it cost $700 w/o an officiant and I thought that was expensive!

 

[VegasAngel]

$60 for our Vegas ceremony at the Bel Amour.

 

[robbie3982]

Man, if I could wear a big ballgown dress and FI wasn''t anti-eloping, that would soooo be the way to go for us.

 

[njc]

Wow. I had no clue officiants could be so expensive!

For my hometown church we paid $250 for everything. Officiant was $100 which he donated to the church, plus $50 for the custodian to open up the church for rehersal and the wedding and another $100 for the organist/pianist.

 

[codex57]

Err, mine was free. Well, I think we tipped him $300 (ok, donated or tithed) but he didn''t charge us anything. My church officials couldn''t marry us cuz they had a rule that both parties had to be Christian. I used the officiant at my cousins'' church. Came out to our location for rehearsal and actual ceremony and even brought the necessary props (some kinda prayer cushion thing).

 

[labbielove]

hi there,

well, our officiant is a family friend who''s an ordained catholic deacon so he isn''t charging us anything, so we''ll probably get them a very nice gift or pay for their hotel or something. our site fee is 2200 but that is for the chapel and the reception hall, coordinators, etc. it did seem steep, but the catering is much less than other spots so they probably just make up for it in the site fee.

however other places i know have a site fee of 750-$1000 for a ceremony, plus then you''d have to pay for your own officiant.


the only place i found less would be the chapel at my old college that is $400 for alumni.

by chance is the $ they are asking for also include the site for the ceremony??

 

[robbie3982]

We didn''t ask since it''s completely out of our price range.

 

[strmrdr]

$250-$500 is the going rate for members of that Church. $1000 isn''t uncommon for non-members including the counseling.
Most of them require 2-5 counseling sessions before the wedding and its a gift for members which is why the price difference.