Is it normal to pay for church ceremony?

WOW Martinez! That is a lot, you are right :-). Yea it just I can't get married at my church unless I become a member so I may do that.

Megan do u not belong to any church?

Yeah... everything is expensive in Texas! HAHA!

Ladylee, I am to one church back in my home state California. But we are getting married in WA because his families and friends are here.

Megan check your pm in a couple of minutes

Megan, it is completely normal. Remember what the day is about..... It's about THE CEREMONY. You can find venues for your reception in which you can also have your ceremony. That may help with the cost. It's the ceremony which you are celebrating, don't lose focus of that. I won't go into the actual church building costs, the girls above already covered that....

But as far as it goes, think about the Officiant this way... whatever you pay your Officiant, they normally don't just show up and read something. They talk with you on the phone, they meet with you, they write your ceremony. I've had couples say "Well, we just want something short, and we feet it's ridiculous to spent $XXX for 20 minutes of work." On average I spent 20-30 hours on each wedding I do, including talking to the couple, meeting, preparing, emailing, etc. If you break that down by hour, would YOU want to work for $5-8 an hour??

Hope it helps you understand. Good Luck.

My first reaction was Holy Cow!

the first time around, I did not get married in my church and had my preacher perform ceremony. I only paid $100 and $50 of that was refunded.

Cant really say much bout this time around as we're doing it outside.

Good Luck

As noted, an outdoor ceremony can cut costs since you can usually find an officiant for around $250, but in Washington state I wouldn't want to chance the weather.

You can definitely do a $5K wedding, though--that's about the cost of ours. The main way to keep costs down is to limit your guest list and keep food cheap, as you already mentioned--you could do a Sunday afternoon ceremony & reception and even just have cake and punch, rather than paying for even deli sandwiches. You don't have to feed people a full meal as long as you don't have the reception at mealtime!

And thank you. We actually used this photo for our invites (custom photo postcards). It's one of my favorites of the two of us together.

It cost us $750 to use the church because we were not parishioniers. That included the musicians fee but not the officiant which was whatever we felt like (we gave $200.) That also did not include premarital classes which cost like $350, plus we made a donation of $350... so yeah $1500 bucks! Oh well I don't have regrets.. the ceremony is the part that really matters, since you know, that's when you actually get married!!!

Our outdoor ceremony is on the Gettysburg Battlefield and it only cost $50. Then we'll be making a donation to the church our officiant preaches at.

So, I guess I got off pretty cheap compared to ya'll.

I wanted to elope instead because not much money. But my FH wanted to share the special day with his family and love. So I gave in to plan a real wedding. Like I said Lovelyunqiue, I thought some churches are free. I probably misunderstood the person.

Thanks Cabel, cake and punch sound great! Do you think 100 guests is too much for 5k wedding? My FH has a large family and I don't lol.

I think 100 is doable if you're feeding them cake and punch. Also, if you're not serving alcohol that cuts costs TREMENDOUSLY. We're probably spending slightly over $1000 on dinner and booze alone--that's only for 40 people.

For a cheaper cake option, consider cupcakes or mini-cupcakes, or grocery store sheet cakes. We're getting mini-cupcakes in a bunch of different flavors.

You could also consider eloping or a private ceremony and then just having a reception. If your FH really just wants to share the day, then having a private ceremony (with a JOP or something) and a public reception will cut costs and still provide what he wanted out of it in the first place.

Since we're doing a DW, we're having a small wedding, but my mother is planning to host a reception near where my parents live a few months later--technically, you can have a "wedding reception" up to a year after the actual marriage takes place.

@ Megan, you can get by with 5k for 100 people. We are spending about 5500 for 120 people, but that is in the midwest, and we are using the same cite for ceremony and reception. That can help with the costs there.

That make sense, I appreciate your time letting me know. I am so new to all of this lol and I never thought I would actually get married. So I never really had a dream wedding lol. Btw, your wedding sound amazing!!!! So freaking cool, where will be your DW wedding at? I told my FH that we could have a bigger wedding later in life to renew vows.

Doing approx 6K for 90 people... BUT that includes our honeymoon cruise.

Totally doable... just be smart and do lots of shopping around and comparing prices. And just ask us... we'll be glad to help however we can.

Well lovelyunique, I wish I can have a outside wedding but it will be too cold in Seattle lol. I just reduced to 75 guests from 100. Because it is so expensive and I just think a few friends is okay when it is a personal affair ya know? Wow how did you do it for 5k wedding? tell me more :-) Congrats btw.

We're doing our DW in Vegas--actually, if you're getting married in Feb, that could be a really great time to do a Vegas wedding if you wanted. The wedding industry is huge there, so there are lots of options in various price ranges, and February is kind of the off-season so you could get some good deals. It would still involve travel expenses, though, & wouldn't be good for having a lot of guests there. But if you & your FH wanted to do a little elopement/honeymoon combo, that could be a good way to save money, & then come back for a simple reception at home.

Really, the first thing to do here is put in a budget on the Wedding Wire budget app, & then start pricing things. Make a list of your must-haves so you can allot a little more money for them.

Oh, & I also saved a TON of money by not getting a traditional wedding gown. I am NOT advocating cutting that cost if you really want one, but for me, I wanted a red dress anyway, so a BM's dress was perfect... and MUCH cheaper.

That is a great idea, I will do wedding wire app thing. LOL no offense but vegas is not my FH style, let just say he grew up in a religous home. Well my mom get to buy me a wedding dress, so I am lucky about that. I just have to pay for a lot of things. Is it too early to create a guest list when it is 10 months away? I think it is good to do it now because we need exact count for the wedding.

We started working on a guest list a year and a half away. You'd be surprised at how much will change (for us anyway), 2 couples are getting divorced, 1 friend moved across country, and then you'll have the "oh, I forgot them" people. Do whatever you can early... you'll be less stressed come closer to the time. Find your budget and work from there.