Officiant "donation"

tcnoble

So our venue covers our officiant fee - they basically tell us here is who we recommend, if you use them we cover the fee. Great. We aren't picky, it's not a religious ceremony, works for us. We looked on their website and it says "A portion of every donation we receive is given to blah blah blah".

What is this donation and how much are we expected to donate?? Is it basically a tip?? I was thinking $50-100 but want to make sure that isn't totally below the norm.

Maggie0829

I think this is a question you need to ask your venue.

tcnoble

I've got an email out to our contact there, but thought I would see if anyone had any insight in the meantime.

flantastic

tcnoble said:

So our venue covers our officiant fee - they basically tell us here is who we recommend, if you use them we cover the fee. Great. We aren't picky, it's not a religious ceremony, works for us. We looked on their website and it says "A portion of every donation we receive is given to blah blah blah".

What is this donation and how much are we expected to donate?? Is it basically a tip?? I was thinking $50-100 but want to make sure that isn't totally below the norm.

The officiant's website? Many religious officiants will ask for a "donation" instead of a "fee" so that people with true financial hardship don't feel like they can't have a religious ceremony if they want it. But obviously if you can pay them, you should. I think these are probably the same thing.

tcnoble

flantastic said:

tcnoble said:

So our venue covers our officiant fee - they basically tell us here is who we recommend, if you use them we cover the fee. Great. We aren't picky, it's not a religious ceremony, works for us. We looked on their website and it says "A portion of every donation we receive is given to blah blah blah".

What is this donation and how much are we expected to donate?? Is it basically a tip?? I was thinking $50-100 but want to make sure that isn't totally below the norm.

The officiant's website? Many religious officiants will ask for a "donation" instead of a "fee" so that people with true financial hardship don't feel like they can't have a religious ceremony if they want it. But obviously if you can pay them, you should. I think these are probably the same thing.

Yes - on the officiant's website. Our venue covers the "fee" but we feel like we should still pay them something, and it's within our budget to do so. Just curious what the going rate might be.

mlg78

We had to pay numerous fees to the church, including one for the officiant.  We also gave him a gift certificate to his favorite restaurant for $50 (his son is my agency's CEO so I knew he liked the place) as I didn't just want to give him cash since we already paid the fee.

tammym1001

Our officiant didn't charge, but took donations. We asked him what was normal and gave him a little extra. We ended up giving him  $350.

huskypuppy14

tcnoble said:

flantastic said:

tcnoble said:

So our venue covers our officiant fee - they basically tell us here is who we recommend, if you use them we cover the fee. Great. We aren't picky, it's not a religious ceremony, works for us. We looked on their website and it says "A portion of every donation we receive is given to blah blah blah".

What is this donation and how much are we expected to donate?? Is it basically a tip?? I was thinking $50-100 but want to make sure that isn't totally below the norm.

The officiant's website? Many religious officiants will ask for a "donation" instead of a "fee" so that people with true financial hardship don't feel like they can't have a religious ceremony if they want it. But obviously if you can pay them, you should. I think these are probably the same thing.

Yes - on the officiant's website. Our venue covers the "fee" but we feel like we should still pay them something, and it's within our budget to do so. Just curious what the going rate might be.

I could be way off base here, but if your venue is covering the officiant fee, you probably don't have to pay anything to the officiant directly. I'm assuming this officiant is like any other vendor, and people not working with your venue can hire him/her directly, which is why she has it on her website.

Think of it like a baker instead of an officiant, many venues have the cake included, and you can get it from A, B, or C bakery. You go to the baker and say I'm getting married at X venue, our cake is included in our package with them. Therefore you don't have to pay the bakery directly, because your venue is. However, anyone can order a cake from that same baker even if they're not associated with the venue that you are, and they obviously have to pay the bakery themselves. I hope I'm making sense.

tcnoble

huskypuppy14 said:

tcnoble said:

flantastic said:

tcnoble said:

So our venue covers our officiant fee - they basically tell us here is who we recommend, if you use them we cover the fee. Great. We aren't picky, it's not a religious ceremony, works for us. We looked on their website and it says "A portion of every donation we receive is given to blah blah blah".

What is this donation and how much are we expected to donate?? Is it basically a tip?? I was thinking $50-100 but want to make sure that isn't totally below the norm.

The officiant's website? Many religious officiants will ask for a "donation" instead of a "fee" so that people with true financial hardship don't feel like they can't have a religious ceremony if they want it. But obviously if you can pay them, you should. I think these are probably the same thing.

Yes - on the officiant's website. Our venue covers the "fee" but we feel like we should still pay them something, and it's within our budget to do so. Just curious what the going rate might be.

I could be way off base here, but if your venue is covering the officiant fee, you probably don't have to pay anything to the officiant directly. I'm assuming this officiant is like any other vendor, and people not working with your venue can hire him/her directly, which is why she has it on her website.

Think of it like a baker instead of an officiant, many venues have the cake included, and you can get it from A, B, or C bakery. You go to the baker and say I'm getting married at X venue, our cake is included in our package with them. Therefore you don't have to pay the bakery directly, because your venue is. However, anyone can order a cake from that same baker even if they're not associated with the venue that you are, and they obviously have to pay the bakery themselves. I hope I'm making sense.

-----STUCK IN BOX-----

YES. That's exactly it. Anyone else could hire this officiant, it's just included with our venue. So with that understanding, when they ask for a "donation"... is anything required? I'm still waiting to hear back from my venue contact to see what's usually done, but just curious what others would do if they were in the same situation.