Cost for wedding venue

That sounds pretty typical unfortunately- that is the same price at my Catholic Church in Maryland.

My understanding is that this money also goes to the preparations with all the paperwork, the meetings you have to do prior with the priest. Our church is very large and old so it also helps pay for the heating/air & electricity and not to mention the sacristan staff to unlock set up for the mass and clean up.

I would suggest if you are an active member just speaking with the priest and explaining your situation. The priest would want you I'd imagine to get married in the church and especially wouldn't want you to have your wedding elsewhere just because of money!

When we first started planning we wanted to use our church for the ceremony but they no longer allow people to get married there; you can use any of the pastors to officiate for a fee but you have to get physically married elsewhere.

I know nothing about churches but we are paying $3k to use a garden for our ceremony. Also your deposit should count towards your total fee. Every single one of our vendors required a sign contract and deposit, so that's not out of the norm.

If you can afford it, go for it.

Happy planning!

Our ceremony site and reception are on the same property. Ceremony fee was $450. If we wanted ceremony only no reception it would be $900

We're getting married at a golf course. Our deposit was 4000

Our ceremony site (just the ceremony site) is $4,000. Then we still have to pay the officiant.

We aren't getting married in a church though.

Was the extra 0 a typo?

That doesn't seem unusual to me at all. From what friends have told me, the Catholic Churches in my area are over $1k + fee for the priest + clean up fee. I think the problem is that you just assumed it would be free or "cheap" simply because it's a church. That's not the case.

As you can see from this thread, many people pay thousands of dollars for ceremony sites.

I'm getting married in a church and the fees are $500 plus I pay the minister from my home church $350.

I don't think the fees they charge are unreasonable. But I do think it's not very generous of them to not give you the parishioners price. You'll have been a member for five out of the six months and have been in the past (so they know you're not just joining to get married there).

I got married in my home church and there was no cost other than the $100 gift card DH and I gave to the minister. Usually, my church charges $750 for use of the facilities for members and non members for weddings due to some issues that had arisen in the past with nonmember brides who did not follow the alcohol and music policies. As a result, there had not been any weddings there in about 5 years. Given the circumstances of our wedding, we weren't charged for use of the church.

How do you think the lights get turned on, the heat gets supplied? How do the people get paid?

That's how. One of the sermons I wrote for my ordination process was called, "The Free Church; it's not what you think." People pay for cable, for hamburgers, for gyms, but when it comes to churches this always seems to stick in their craw. You certainly can worship in your bathroom, and many people do, but once you're in a church and find solace and inspiration in that space, you should be tithing every week as an active member. You've said that you're not, so this isn't surprising at all. That's within the range of normal; it's also within the range of what you'd pay to have the ceremony in a reception hall.

I'm kind of surprised that they will even let you bring in another officiant; even the UUA churches in my area won't allow that.

Our church costs $600. That is 250 for the clean up after, 150 for an on site coordinator, and 200 donation to the church.

So, we got married in this prettiest chapel we could find in Kalamazoo, MI because photos were really important to me.

We spent $2000 on the chapel, $200 on the officiant (a pastor we knew aka we got a deal- he's usually more,) and $150 on a pianist.

It's just what you want! We could've got married in a chapel for $200!

Here was our chapel!

We built our own Cross and are bringing our officiant from our church. That way we can have a nice gazebo wedding a hop, skip, and jump away from our reception ( and bar)

Our Catholic Church is 1200 and doesn't include anything. We also have to pay the priest and musicians so it's gonna be closer to $2000 (not to mention the $800 we were required to spend on marriage prep classes and a "filing fee" for the documents needed)

That is expensive! I paid 1000 for my church and thought that was crazy. But it's a 400 dollar organ player fee and 600 church usage fee.

Our church charges $450 thats for Pastor, facility, musicians, janitorial opening, cleaning and closing church, and Church Wedding Coordinator.... also for rehearsal and the Church Fellowship Hall for Rehearsal Dinner....

I love the Lord with all that I am... But if they charged us $1750 for the ceremony I would go somewhere else... that is alot!

Most places charge for the use of their property im not sure why you are outraged . Our venue charges 3500 for ceremony and 3500 for reception i don't think the fee is unusual.

We're getting married at our local city park and the reception is elsewhere. The park reservation was only $225 for 24 hours and if it rains our reception venue agrees to allow us to have our ceremony there, as well, for no additional charge. And we'll get half of our payment refunded from the city park.