@mstellah: K. My grandfather is doing mine (so free) but a friend who is mutually planning has to pay $450 for their 15 minute ceremony (they just round up by the hour here aparently..) :/ ick.
That blows my mind!!!
Our officiant cost us $119 EXACTLY, including tax and travel costs. This covered a rehearsal the night before and his services on the day.
Ours technically was free but I know my parents gave him some cash afterwards. I think $200-250.
I guess with most things wedding realted, prices really determine location. In my region of Ontario every Officiant we contacted was between $300-$350, which I found to be really expensive.
$650 seems really steep, especially since you also have to pay for your Marriage License as well. I would continue to ask for quotes. Check out Kijiji, you can find some great, affordable vendors under the Weddings tab.
mine is costing $350 :) it is the only thing you NEED is the wedding (other then bride and groom) so i can justify the cost
$200 for the ceremony and $100 for the rehersal! I thought this was a great deal, especially as they are highly sought after in the Orlando area.
I will add here that I think the reason mine was so cheap was that he is an agent of the Province we live in, and I think it's a set price province-wide for any provincial commissioner. He also had a per/km price for travel that he used to determine travel costs. I think the rehearsal fee he set himself though.
I got three quotes, all flate rates.
1. $450-initial meeting, rehearsal, ceremony, and filing of papersork
2. $425-rehearsal, ceremony, filing of paperwork, and ceremony music on a bose radio.
3. $195-initial meeting, ceremony, filing of paperwork.
I went with the cheapest option 3, we are not doing a rehearsal so wow should I pay the extra money for that service when its not needed. That $200+ difference will be going to all the other million things needed for the wedding.
@mstellah: Oh no. Not crazy. I think for standing up and reading a darn page for 20 minutes you don't deserve several hundred dollars. Sorry bout it, but add that to the travel/hosting fees and this person suddenly costs as much or more than your cocktail hour.
We paid $650 and were quoted by another guy for $850. We did not have any relationship with either and found them online. The guy that married us was actually a grammy award winner for songwriting. We were very excited about that haha
I got quoted for $200 in Jackson Hole, WY (uber pricey) for a Judge who could perform ceremonies outside in peak wedding season on a Saturday. No rehearsal was needed.
For the actual wedding (which happened in Canada) we paid $206 for travel, license, officiant, one meeting.
So comparable!
In Chicago or another big city, I don't think it's crazy. They should be giving you way more than an hour of their time! They should be writing your ceremony with you (which would probably require meeting at least once), going to the rehearsal, and officiating the wedding. I would see if they would do it for $500. Always negotiate!
Our officiant cost $427, which included his travel costs (two hours driving each way for him). We did not have a rehearsal, but he did meet with us beforehand to go over the ceremony and answer any questions we had. Yeah, it was sort of expensive, but you can't have a wedding without an officiant. That said, I think anything over $500 is asking a lot, unless he has to travel a really long way and do a big complicated rehearsal.
I paid about $550 in the DC area for ceremony and rehearsal. It was crazy. After seeing that quote and how easy his job was, I almost wanted to get into the wedding officiant business. lol
Good golly! Sounds like I need to be putting my Universal Life Church ordination to work! I was planning on charging $50 + fuel + extra charge for custom vows.
I think ours was $84.00 for each the ceremony and the rehearsal, plus mileage.. so definitely under $300 all together. But like another poster said, marriage commissioners are government officials, so they have a pretty low set rate they're allowed to charge universally.
We are being married by a County Judge. legally she can't charge us a fee. We are making a campaign contribution to her fund
I would expect at least a couple hundred dollars. It isn't just the ceremony time you pay for, it is prep time (I imagine they spend at least 30-60 minutes with you to understand what kind of ceremony you want, then they need some time to put it all together, rehearsal is usuall at least an hour and they need to show up early, be available to take calls with questions, and then show up at least an hour early for the ceremony. Afterwards they need to complete the license and submit it, either via mail or in person.
It's probably at least 6 -7 hours of work for someone who is doing a good job, plus, with an officiant, there are only so many weddings they can do a week - most fall at certain times and if they book you at that time, it means they can't book someone else.
I do think $600+ is steep, but the right officiant can make a big difference and the level of work and personalization they put in can really vary. I would probably expect to spend in the $350 range for someone good. $50/hour is really reasonable when you have limited hours to work in a week.
FWIW, we are having a friend do ours. She got ordained free through ULC. The wedding is about 2 hours from her though, so we are paying for 2 nights of hotel ($250) and got her a nice gift for her home ($160). So we're spending over $400 to have a friend do it for "free."
I live in Oregon, my ceremony fee is $100 for (20 guests and under) and $130 for (over 21 guest, plus I bring my P.A. system with 2 microphones). If you want me to wear a costume then it is $175, plus rental fee for costume. If I travel more than 10 miles away from my office then there is a travel fee $.30 per mile round trip. I make about $130 to $165 per wedding/vow renewal, that price includes the travel fee.
For no additional fees I offer to write a fully custom ceremony or I offer to give the couple a packet of everything they need to create one themselves. I try to always be available to all the couples for any questions or concerns. The marriage license is filled out by me and I mail it in to the county clerk's office.
I officiate about 40 ceremonies a year. I work about 10 to 15 hours per ceremony including travel time. I have great reviews. But I only make about $6k a year. I do this job because I love it, not because it makes me rich.
But I also have low overhead. Some officiants rent expensive offices in big expensive cities. It all depends where you live, if the area is expensive so will the vendors costs usually, and visa versa.
The area affects the vendor costs, keep that in mind when comparing prices.
At first when I read your question I gasped being that In VA it isn't legal for the officiant to charge more than $50 to perform the ceremony... BUT then I saw the rest of your question I add in the church fee, organist/cantor fees, etc it came out to be somewhere around $500!
Fees - Any person authorized to celebrate the rites of marriage shall be permitted to charge a fee not to exceed $50, Section 20-27, Code of Virginia, Domestic Relations. This information should be confirmed with the court as we may not always be notified of changes that occur.
@Woodstock: Darnit! Too bad I'm getting married in MD :( I HAD to pick my home state, huh?
The quotes I'm seeing are $600+
The first time I got married, all the church fees were over $1200. We had to pay the minister, the organist, the caretaker, and a site fee.
Mandatory premarital counseling was included.
@CMPerri: Yup, same price and location for me!
WHOA... that's SOO much! We had our friend be our officiant. He got ordained online through universal life church - so it was free!
@NAvery: when you break it down like that it seems much more reasonable. Thanks
We paid $500, but it the pastor was a personal friend and we left to to: part blank so he could sign it over to a charity if he wanted. He wrote the ceremony (except the vows) and it was amazing and personal, so I didn't mind at al. Not sure if he cashed the check to himself or a charity though.
We initially booked with someone who was going to charge us 400 bucks, I thought that was ok considering i had been looking at people who charge 650++. Then our venue changed and they said they wouldnt do it anymore so we had to find a different person to do it. Luckily our friend knew someone and her cost with travel and tax's is 230. Which is MUCH better in my oppinion!
@mstellah: I can't remember how much my first officiant charged, but it would have been an extra $200 if I had told them I wasnt Catholic (yes, I lied to the priest to save money. I think that is BS). We also had to pay a church fee and a fee to the organ player regardless of whether he played or not. What a croc.
This time the officiant is free (family friend). I'm not sure if we should pay him something anyway...
Just used a currency converter to find out the cost of mine in dollars (I'm a UK bee), it's $988.69! This is just for us to go and give notice of marriage at our local registry office and for the registrar and attendant to come to our venue to do our half hour ceremony. Don't think we even get to meet them before the day and they don't customise the service - we can add readings if we want (but have to have them approved before the day to make sure they don't contain any religious words). Sigh, no wonder my hopes of this not costing us our house deposit money have gone straight out of the window :(
we received some high quotes too but ended up going with my childhood pastor. His fee is only $100 but we are paying his milesage to us which will be about $300.
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How much were you quoted or did you pay for your officiant (rehearsal and ceremony)?
I was shocked to receive a $650 quote. We're not very religious and our ceremony will be about 30 mins tops.
Its hard to grasp the concept of paying someone $500-600 for a hour or so of their time....I'm pretty sure that's more than some top lawyers make per hour.
[if you're getting married but your church pastor/priest/rabbi, family, friend or its free no need to reply]