Officiant Cost?

We're paying $600 for ours, and she is creating a personalized ceremony for us.

Haven't booked yet, but this is the law in my state, but I suppose it doesn't apply everywhere... I can't imagine not tipping them more if this is all they charge us, though.

@Celia Great perspective!

Yeah I am totally prepared to pay the $500.00. I would rather spend the money and get a lovely ceremony out of it. Considering my only frame of reference was married in a church 11 years ago, I was just a little surprised. I had budgeted about $300.00 in my head prior to this. But yes, I would rather spend the $500.00 and have a great ceremony!

I pick a wonderful local officiant for $300 with taxes.

Anything more is just crazy for 45 or and hour.

Were paying $250

We're paint $350 for ours

Our dear friend is a pastor in another state. He officiated our wedding and did a freaking awesome job! We gave him $500 cash with a nice thank you note. We also paid for his (and his family of four) hotel rooms. And we invited him and his family to the rehearsal and dinner, and obviously the ceremony and reception. And to a brunch we hosted the day after. We also did beautiful welcome baskets for their rooms. I'm all about treating people well.

The officiant is one of the most important parts of the whole day. Don't skimp on them.

Sky? Your '45' minute ceremony is more like 12 hours of work. If not more.

As I said already Rawlings, this is for a court clerk. Not every state even has this option, nor is it the best one if you want a personalized ceremony.

We are paying $850, that is the average cost here

Our officiant was $325. She was so awesome!! She had pages and pages of wedding scripts to choose from and completely customize for every aspect of the ceremony. Our ceremony was totally customized to what we wanted. We ended up sending her an additional tip as a thank-you because our ceremony just turned out so beautifully

ETA: We did not invite her to our reception, because she was a hired vendor and not a friend or someone we had a relationship with.

Our officiant is a good friend and fellow improviser of FH. He has said that he doesn't want to be paid, and while we are paying for parts of our wedding (my parents are paying for a chunk) my mom, the cute mom that she is insisted on paying for his time even though he is a friend and attending all the wedding festivities. Not sure what she is going to pay ours because when my sister got married she paid for FH's plane/show tickets when we went for a family reunion, so around $300 I would estimate.

Unfortunately I think this is a normal price. Ours is $575 and $1075 if you're not a parishioner!! It's insane anymore... but it's the church my parents were married in so it's a must for me.

Why unfortunately, Julie? It cracks me up that 500.00 shoes are fine, but paying for an officiant is unfortunate.

I would stay away from the one who id demanding an invite. My friend is marrying us so we aren't paying anything. I did look into officiants before he offered though and it seemed to be around $350 for the service and more if you wanted music, microphones, etc. If the $500 includes sound its not bad.

We are paying $300 for a personalized ceremony

My BIL is an ordained minister and he's doing our ceremony for free

We invited our minister to our reception, but honestly it was family only and it was Easter so he didn't attend. Otherwise (had it not been Easter) he would have attended. He also married my brother and SIL and he attended their reception.

ETA: that made it seem like he didn't choose to go because it was family only. He said he wished he could come but his wife had planned a family Easter celebration for after church and he couldn't skip it.

Our officiant is $650, personalized ceremony and includes rehearsal. I doubt they would want to attend the reception. It's another location and they are an independent officiant so I would imagine she would have another ceremony to attend or would want the evening free to do what she likes.

If that is in your potential officiant's contract, keep looking. If and only if I'm fortunate enough to get invited to stay I always politely decline.