My FI and I are eloping with zero guests and have been getting referrals from the couple who are renting us their property to stay at for the few nights we are planning and marrying in New Mexico. So far, we have hired our photographer through them and are now speaking with a very pleasant sounding private officiant/ordained minister. She charges a sliding scale of $300-500 and did mention that she would be willing to work with us if that is outside of our budget. I was not expecting the charge for this service to be so pricey and was curious what others are being asked to pay planning a similar, very intimate wedding ceremony. Thank you!
@bohosioux: the cheapest i could find was 200, and this literally includes meeting the lady at the cite a half hr before the ceremony. my ceremony will be 20ish minutes long. i cannot believe how expensive it is for less than an hour of service
We paid our officiant $175.00 as that is what he asked to cover the expense of traveling. It was a custom ceremony with several emails and discussions as well as pre-marital counseling sessions.
He was amazing.
@hyperJulie: I am awaiting a sample ceremony "idea" from her via email, but I would like to write some of it. I like the idea of being pleasantly surprised, though, and welcome her experienced suggestions. I am thinking about letting her know that $200 is more affordable for us and awaiting her response.
@ssilva1: Tell me about it! We are from out of state, so we MAY meet up the night before briefly. Otherwise, we won't see her until the morning of, but are able to phone and email with questions or directions.
@Treejewel19: She will be traveling from town and into the desert very early in the morning, as we are marrying before/at sunrise. So, it will be approx an hour or slightly less of driving total to and from. She did mention that she is very near the location and so traveling expenses don't concern her.
@bohosioux: that's good atleast, a few months ago, we moved 500 miles away from where we are getting married, so i booked her while i was down here, and only corosponded with her a few times via email. So i will be meeting her that day... and hopefullly all goes well! haha
@ssilva1: Yeah, I guess I'm not so nervous about it since it's just FI and I. Nobody else to impress. :)
I'm excited to say I'm paying $0 for that one!!! Having a good friend marry us and it was free for her to get ordained :)
It's costing us zero. His church will marry their members for free. We're giving the pastor a donation though. There was also no charge to use the church for the ceremony and only $200 to use their fellowship hall for the reception.
We are paying $500 - its actually 2 officicants a husband and wife.. They help customize our ceremony and do pre wedding activities for us as well.. It is a bit expensive hopefully it will be worth it.
@Dragonfly22ny: What sort of pre-wedding activities? We are incorporating a Native American vase ceremony that the officiant is familiar with, but really just want a fairly simple but memorable experience.
@bohosioux: We paid $206 total. The British Columbia registration/license was $100, officiant fee was $89 and the rest was her travel fee to our location.
I had the wedding in Jackson Hole, WY once, and that judge was charging us $200 for a Saturday. It would have been $50 if it were on a weekday in his office LOL
My mom works for my church so my minister is marrying us so free but he normally charges $250, We are still going to get him a $100 gift card to a nice resturant. He is also doing pre-marital counciling with us.
$450 but for an intimate small ceremony I believe he is just $250
Free. I work in politics so I know a lot of judges. Dunno how much they charge if they have to go somewhere to do it. You can look up justices of the peace and civil or criminal court district judges in the area you are getting married (usually on county websites) and call through them.
@bohosioux: I'm wondering how close you are going to be to the Colorado border. You can marry yourselves in Colorado so all you would have to pay is the fee for the license. What I am saying is you could take care of the legal stuff there for cheap and then maybe your officiant would give you a discount? I know its a crazy thought but I thought I might throw it out there just in case it might help you in anyway.
Also I went to a wedding in New Mexico last year and they had a family member be ordained and they did it. So that is a cheaper option as well.
We paid $150 which was not bad but we did have trouble with our license because we think he lost it. He had to end up paying for a duplicate license because the recorders office never received it.
@Mrs Christopher: What a fantastic idea!! Thank you so much for letting me know. I brought it up to my FI and we are now going back to "road tripping" it (as opposed to flying) and will make our first stop around Denver before heading to Albuquerque for our private ceremony (NO WITNESSES-BESIDES PHOTOGRAPHER-OR OFFICIANT!!) and then to Arizona! We will get our license and mail everything in after the ceremony. We really just wanted it to be us, alone, with the photographer to capture the moment. So thankful for the suggestion. I think it will work out perfectly for us! :)
@bohosioux: Yay! I'm so glad I could help. My guy actually did it this way and it was awesome. We will have an actual ceremony next year for family though since we just filled out the paper work.
Here's a link with the info: http://www.denvergov.org/TabId/383424/default.aspx
It says something about needing approval before doing the self bit but we didn't need that we just walked in and signed everything.
@Mrs Christopher: Awesome! When I called, the lady said we just sign and we're married or we can mail it in after the ceremony. So excited to save $300 and have it just be us! <3
$250 "donation" to our minister, as well as the same to the church for the use of the facilities, and the same to the organist
@mstellah: OMG! Is that for a private, no guest ceremony?! I feel your pain. Ouch. :|
I think it's a very regional thing - in Australia, I think it's common to pay at least $300 for a civil celebrant. Ours is charging $500, and that covers her travel fee (about 2 hours), then a few other things on top. It may only be half an hour of actual "work" for her, but without her we couldn't get married so we're happy to pay it.
$300, which includes any contact/emails/phone calls, customized ceremony, both officiants (or whichever one you want, since it's a husband-wife team), and a rehearsal that they run. They're very cool people.
@bohosioux: That's awesome! We thought it was such a cool thing too! Hope you enjoy Denver and your elopement. I know that we love the place. :)
we asked for a custom quote because we already have written up what we'd like to say, (thanks to some other bees on here!) no rehearsal needed, so $100! :) You might call your city for retired judges, we were originally going to do that but found this other guy we liked better. They were around 100-200 I think.
Free :-) our friend is marrying us....well I guess we're paying for his and his wifes dinner so we'll say $30.
I just called the guy we're going to be having do ours and he charges $75. We're meeting in a couple weeks to discuss things over dinner.
$175 custom ceremony (no extra charge). Free rehersal that we didn't do because our wedding was small. She was awesome. I can't imagine a better job if you like people and are good at public speaking! (neither of which is me lol).
Found her on the internet. When we got our marriage license the clerk said "oh, I hear she's really good" which made me feel better about hiring someone online, we didn't even meet her til day of.
Our pastor isn't charging us, citing that he does his work for God, not money. :)
Ours is $85, and then $0.50/minute of travel time to the location (maybe 15 worth?). And my friends always say "well, you could just have a reception" when I start freaking out about money - that's the expensive part!!! Oh, and she's letting us write our own ceremony.
Most definitely regional - I'm in the NY metro area and spent (well, my sister spent, this was her gift...) $700 dollars on our officiant. It was a non-religious ceremony. We had lots of meetings and LOTS of emails with our officiant, and she wrote us a ceremony from scratch, and she was VERY patient with my lengthy editing. There was also an extra fee because my venue was so far for her. But she took care of EVERYTHING the day of. Coordinating the music with the eremony (we had no bridal party so I decided we needed no rehearsal), giving the photographer a cue sheet, right down to handing me a tissue when I couldn't hold it together during my vows. Well worth the money.
$600.. FI and I were pleasantly surprised actually! We were totally expecting like 1k.. maybe because every other vendor is so stinkin expensive
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