How much to pay our officiant?

I would follow the donation guide he sent.

$350

Ours said typical donations are $300 to $350. She is our local pastor and we are having our wedding at our reception venue out of town (probably 25 minutes from the church). She is also coming to rehearsal dinner and letting us personalize everything. If we couldn't afford that, obviously we could donate less but we are planning on doing that much. It sounded very fair to me and it is tax deductible since it is a donation to a church

Mine was 245

Any pre wedding counseling? Using the church? Are they helping at the rehearsal? These would call for more of a donation. I would probably use the guide. We will probably donate 300-400$.

You wrote, "He does list a donation guide on his email, but only mentions typical donation rates for OOT weddings." Deduct about $85 from the donation guide, if the wedding is local to him, and pay him that. I wouldn't even look at his guide. I'd give him at least $500.

$150

My officiant for a non-religious ceremony of similar length was $175 plus I'm going to add a tip but I think it depends where you live as well just like with everything else. To me $500 seems a lot but the cost of living is higher in NY/NJ area

I suggest researching the going rate for officiants in your area and donating something in that ballpark. Please consider the hours of time your officiant puts into writing your ceremony over the length of the ceremony itself. Best wishes!

Look at what is the going rate in your area, and factor in whether this is an independent or a person on staff at a church, thus supported by a salary.

Your 20 minute ceremony would take me about 12-20 hours to produce, from your first email to writing, performing, and making you legal.

Our fees run 450-900.00 depending on degree of difficulty.

Wow these rates all seem high to me, but I realize location is a factor. I might have to rethink that fee since I wasn't told of a fee amount

We are paying 150 but while looking we found some broad price ranges.

My bilingual officiant/MC in Shanghai cost me $600. He not only performed the ceremony in English and Chinese, but he also MCd the entire reception also translated all the speeches into Chinese for our local guests, family and friends.

My officiant in California charged me $200 for a 20min ceremony, so we can sign and make it official. We had no walking down the aisle, speeches, etc; just the I Do's.