Out of Town Uncle to Officiate. Gift?

My brother-in-law is our officiant and he'll be traveling. We plan to make a donation to a charity of his choice.

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Do you think that we should provide the option to pay for his ticket, donate to a charity, or donate to his church?

View Quoted Comment We had my husband’s uncle officiate. We discussed with his son, my DH’s cousin, what he thought would be the best play—the first thought we had was paying for his flight, as well. However, his son said what he’d really want is to spend time with us, that the flight wasn’t a big deal and easier to just book on his own rather than coordinate with us. So that’s what we did! We took him and his wife out to a very fancy steak dinner about six months after the wedding as a thank you—the dollar value was definitely higher than their flights and we got to spend a few hours together socializing and catching up. Your officiant might prefer something more practical (i.e. flight or donation), but I did want to throw out what we did because it was exceptionally well-received!

Pay him for services offered. Whatever thumbtack.com says is the average rate for your city.

It sounds like you are similar to me where your officiant would be attending as a guest if they weren’t officiating. Ours is a family friend who has known me since I was born and all he wants is a nice bottle of whiskey. I think it would be a nice gesture to ask if he would like a donation to his church or a charity, but more than that is unnecessary.