How much is your officiant/pastor fee?

@celia I was waiting for you to chime in! I realized after I posted that this should've been focused more on pastors..but we aren't getting married AT the church- so this only requires one person to work with us and drive out to the ceremony site twice. I don't mind because an officiant would be the same price- if not more- but I wasn't sure what to expect with a church when the ceremony is off-site.

The pastor at our church has a set fee of $250 (set by the church). We chose an outside officiant who also happened to be $250.

We're paying $125 for an officiant. If we had opted for a rabbi, it was going to be $1000 minimum.

$250 for ceremony, rehearsal, and 3 premarital counseling sessions in Cleveland, OH for a minister at FH's church

Ours officiated for a restaurant gift card-

We are not getting married in a church - wedding and reception are at same venue. We are in Kansas City. We are paying $200 for our officiant. She charges mileage but since she is literally down the street from the venue, she is not charging us. The $200 includes a pre-wedding meeting, the rehearsal, and the wedding.

Future, I can tell you that your officiant is not going to do what a rabbi would; which isn't necessary a bad thing, just an "apples to apples" thing.

The other thing to keep in mind is that many 'church' clergy do the same ceremony for every ceremony. A really good officiant will hand write your ceremony (not all of it, but parts) and spend probably about 10-12 hours with you from the first phone call to the license filing. Again, not what every couples wants or needs.

This is also a highly regional thing, just like property taxes and wages.....

The really important thing is that you got the person who makes your ceremony exactly what you wanted it to be; for some couples that is short, sweet, not personalized, not important; (just like for some couples flowers are meaningless and photography is down on the list). For others, it's the real focus for the days, and I'd venture to say that in most areas the expensive people are expensive for a reason....and the difference is usually going to be a matter of a couple of hundred dollars. That's not an insignificant amount, but it's one that can be managed by most couples.

Our officiant cost us $395. We found him here on Wedding Wire. He's writing a personalized ceremony for us and he will also get the marriage license for us. The $395 fee includes the rehearsal, too. I see that some officiants charge more to show up to the rehearsal. We're in Nashville, TN.

Our church charges a "donation" of $300.

Our town's mayor is going to be our officiant. He would be free if we were getting married at the town hall (which is in the mall and we don't want to do that) but to go offsite it's only $150. No extra charge for going out-of-town.

We went with a congregational rabbi from the East Bay, and she says she lets the couple decide what they're comfortable paying -- she's apparently gotten paid anything from a live duck (the couple were broke grad students who raised ducks) to a thousand dollars (very successful screenwriters, apparently). We're doing her standard ceremony, with some adjustments to the Hebrew for gender.

We are having a rabbi and a minister. The minister isn't charging us but the rabbi's fee is $900.

Registrar fee is about £80 (We're not religious and the registrar has a set script from gov, any additions from us have to be short/devoid of religious ref/approved)

Officiants aren't really a thing here. Options are gov registrar or religious figure (they've just added Humanist to this category).

Free. But normally she charges between $150 and $500. $150 is a couples/witnesses only courthouse style wedding. $500 gets you a custom ceremony, she'll work with a wedding planner to help you write vows in the months leading up to the ceremony ect ect and rehearsal. Or anything in between.

She's my co worker and friend, so she is doing it for us for free as our wedding gift. She's an elected JOP for our town, and offered pretty much as soon as I had a ring on my finger. The town/state lets them charge whatever they want for weddings.

The officiant is 250 for church and reversal. We are not members of this particular church. Here is our break down. 500 use of church for ceremony and rehearsal, 125 coordinator, 150 sound tech, 150 organist, 125 custodian. Total was 1350. Which I thought was super high until i started checking around. We are in Phoenix, AZ

$500 in Southern California

$410 CAD, which is about $315 USD

If someone paid me in ducks, I'd lose it, I swear.

Now bacon? That's another story.

We paid $500 in DC, but would've been $350 at my childhood church in a suburb of Baltimore.

We paid $150 for a small, personalized ceremony. In KY