Officiant fee for Catholic priest

Ours isn't charging us either, but he is a very close friend of the family. We are, however, required to make a "suggested donation" of $200 to the church.

Ours is also a suggested donation of $200 for the priest. It is $1,000 for the church itself, $20 for each altar server, $200 for the church coordinator, $700 for two cantors, a pianist and a violinist, and $35 for a unity candle. Not cheap!

Good Lord KM, where are getting married?

Los Angeles

Really?

Wow.

We must be lucky.

We have no church use fee, no sound tech fee (we have frieds who do the sound for the chuch and they're doing it as a gift to us.)

No cleaning fee, no officiant fee.

All they ask is that the church look the same it way it did when we got there.

And it's a beautiful church.

Our church is asking for $250 for the church + $150 for the organist which is optional. But of course we will pay for that lol

Based on your church fee of $1000, I guess proportionally, a contribution of $50 to the deacon who will officiate and $50 to the priest saying Mass would be about right. What are your thoughts?

Ah I see. It's not that shocking though. We live in St. Louis and we wanted to get married here, but that sounds about comparable to what we found in churches we were interested in - mostly because we are not members of the parish. We eventually decided to get married in my hometown in rural Missouri. TONS cheaper all around.

I do have to pay the nun who is playing organ piano $125 and the additional musicians (vocalist and violinist) are about the same. But other than that, I think we got off pretty cheap.

Cate and Dom had to pay $300 for the use of the church(a/c etc) and $200 for the organist. The organist was not needed because her aunt is a musician who is recognized Diocese wide. She is the go to for weddings. Her aunt and uncle, along with their adult sons, her cousins, provided the music.

Man, I must be crazy! I'm getting married in Tennessee and our church is $1000 too! (Only $750 for members and since we were already starting to attend and think about joining, that's just an extra push!)

You are so lucky..the Catholic Diocese in our area charges anywhere from $1500-$3000. for the use of the Church, and includes a"Donation" for one Priest. If you want special services this is not included. This does not include the requirement for The Pre-Maritial Counseling and the retreat. You are lucky if all they require is a donation at your discretion. $200.00 is sufficient. It used to be what you could afford in this area, but it has changed......

Fees for the Organist, vocalist, ect., are also not included.....

Ugh I live in Atlanta ad most churches charge up to $3k to have your service there! We decided that the Bible defines a church as a gathering of believers and we think God would prefer that to a building profiting from us. FH's uncle is marrying us and he is a minister at a church out of state. We are donating $250 to his church!

Wow. This seems like so much! I'm in Indiana though, and things aren't as expensive here. Also, I'm Lutheran.

I wondered about this same question because our list is $120 for the wedding coordinators (there are 3 of them that split this) and $50 for the janitor. The pastor is at our discretion. Organist is $50 minimum, $75 if being accompanied by a vocalist. Everything else is no charge (no charge for the use of the church, etc. because I am a member). So, I have no idea what to give the pastor.

What??!!! WOW glad i'm a Jehovah's Witness we aren't charged anything to use the Kingdom Hall and have an elder marry us!!!

I always thought getting married in a church would be cheaper. I wanted an outdoor ceremony though and our ceremony venue fee is $1000 too.

Here in Chicago the downtown cathedrals charge $1,000.

My church because I am a member is free. I will give a donation to the church to help with fuel, lights, water etc. Because I am having a fryer and not my church's house priest I will have to pay $175. But it is totally worth it!

I would say giving $50-100 would be sufficient enough.

I had a rather lucky escape on this topic with an officiant who told us the suggested donation was $300 but then I read reviews on yelp where this suggested donation became a $450 fee on the day and he refused to conduct the service until the cash was in his hand. His justification was that the venue and wedding cost $20k in his estimation so $300 was short changing him. Thankfully we were able to find another officiant with everything in writing. My advice is to ask others, research and check yelp.

I should add that coming from the UK we don't have a regular church so we were going in to finding someone with no background.