Meeting with the Priest

$300-$600 sounds about right. My priest just asked basic questions like what we do, where we live, how long we've been together, why do we want to get married at the church, do we attend church there, a little background about us. He also covered what steps we would need to take to get married in the Church and all that jazz.

They don't necessarily need the donations. But 300 to 400 is good to pay for using the A/C and facility and support the priest who marries you. As for the meeting, they will want to know the readings you will choose and overall schedule for the day. Have you completed engaged encounter or the marriage couseling?

We're paying about $900 for the church. We pay $400 to actually use the church, $200 each for for the cantor and organist, then a $75 fee for the priest (optional but recommended). These were fees given to us by the church, not our choice!

The priest will probably talk with you together to get to know you, and then speak with you separately. There are some personal questions, but it was pretty painless!

We just met with our priest this week. He really just wanted to get to know my fiance better as he knows me pretty well already. He asked about family, what he does for a living, what he thinks my best and worst qualities are and vice versa, how we would rate ourselves as Catholics from 1-10, where we would live after we get married, how we handle finances, things like that. And the church gave us an envelope that suggests a $500 donation, plus I'll give our priest a large bottle of vodka since he's an old Irishman who likes to sip on vodka haha

ETA grammar fix

Thanks everyone. We have not done the marriage prep course as of yet. The church advised the next one will be in September, so we will aim to get it done then.

Our priest was very nice, general questions like why we wanted to get married, dates, etc, and then he explained how to get married in the Catholic Church. We also took an online course, PrepareEnrich, which I thought was great.

As for the fee, we discussed it and he said it was totally our call - they can't demand you make a certain payment or not, but donations are accepted.

The first meeting will pretty much just be general questions. He asked about us, how we met, our families, religious history and we talked a long time about why we wanted to get married in a Catholic Church. We didn't really get into any of the juicy stuff until our second meeting when we talked about the FOCCUS survey.

As for the fee, I would say that is definitely that is the norm. We live in a bigger city and we are paying $500, but there is another church we would have used if we picked a different reception venue and their fee is $2,500! But most of them if you are Catholic and a member of the Church seem to be between $300-$800

The first meeting is pretty general we just talked with a deacon about the process, who we are, what we do, etc. We took the PREPARE survey and have started our meetings with that which walks through each section and has you talk about it. It costs 1,200 for us to get married plus $350 for the organist and cantor. We also have to do a temperament retreat which is an additional fee. We still have to do the 2 retreats and the wedding ceremony prep class.