Spin-Off to the question about Tipping your Priest

If our Church states that the fee for ceremony or nuptial mass is $400, we give a donation on top of that, yes? What is the norm for this? Also, we tip the Priest in addition to the fee and the donation? What would be normal for this?

Any info, I'd really appreciate! Thanks!

I think the fee is the donation. I dunno. My church didn't have a 'suggested donation' and when I asked about a 'fee' my priest said to be 'very generous'. So we gave an amount to the priest and then paid the church's fee for the organist (it was $125). We didn't tip because I was told that that wasn't PC and outdated...I think suven had it right, if you're going to tip a gift is better (from what I read, they could get offended and are not supposed to accept tips). But again, this was my first experience with the whole church/ceremony thing so I don't know. Hope someone can help you better!

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Posted by MissingTheBGene

If our Church states that the fee for ceremony or nuptial mass is $400, we give a donation on top of that, yes? What is the norm for this? Also, we tip the Priest in addition to the fee and the donation? What would be normal for this?

Any info, I'd really appreciate! Thanks!

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No, the 'fee' is what other churches call a 'donation.' $400 is what you are paying to get married in that church. I mentioned in the other thread that our pastor told us it was unnecessary to tip the priests (and the musicians) since our fee covered that. He said we might want to give the altar servers a few bucks if they showed up (no one did for our wedding.)

Check with your church to find out if their fee covers the musicians, if you are using their musicians. If so, then $400 is for everything and if you feel like you want to tip on top of that, it's up to you. If not, you might have to pay a little bit more for the musicians and/or singers. We had to pay for the organist and cantor whether we used them or not, so we used the church people.