Wedding Etiquette Forum

Tipping Ettiquette

Okay,  I know it's different in several parts of the Nation,  but for all you Midwesterners:  How much did or should you tip the following people?  Who requires or expects a tip even if they charge for services rendered?  We don't want to forget anyone who expects one and we also don't want to tip people who won't be expecting one (wow,  that sounds rude).  We just want to be fair for everyone involved.  Thanks for advice!

 - Officiant who charges a fee for ceremony which includes travel (if we go this route over a pastor in a church)
 - Pastor IF we have it in a church which requires a reservation fee for facility
 - Staff of the church (ex. organist/secretary)
(Is a tip required if we do without an organist?)
(Pastor charges a fee in addition to the facility rental,  Janitor charges a fee and the required Church's Wedding Planner charges a fee.  We will make our own programs and have a friend sing.)
 - Caterer / Caterer Staff
 - Bartenders (Ours have an hourly wage on top of the fee for their liquor PLUS they will make tips off our guests I'm assuming as tey will have a tip jar on the counter)
 - DJ who includes travel in his reservation fee


Anyone I'm forgetting?  Thanks!!

Re: Tipping Ettiquette

  • hbatchel2hbatchel2 member
    100 Comments Third Anniversary
    edited January 2012
    I'm pretty sure the general rule on tipping is to tip anyone who doesn't own their business.

    We only tipped our pastor and our bartender. We didn't have catering staff or floral deliveries or anything like that though.

    I gave our pastor 150 because thats what his fee is for marrying non-members, and we didn't know any other way to decide what was appropriate. We tipped our bartender 50 dollars. His fee was 10 an hour for 5 hours so we just doubled that. We also had a required church wedding planner, but she did nothing but stress me out and confuse everyone at the rehearsal, so I didn't feel she deserved a tip.
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  • As for the people at church:  Our church's fees were broken down by each person.  There was a set dollar amount for the pastor, the music director, the alter servers, etc.  We wrote the checks directly to those people, rather than writing a large check to the church and not knowing how much was going to each person.  Because of that I didn't really feel it necessary to tip on top of that unless they provided exceptional service.  It was sort of like they were the owner of the business b/c the business was them and we were paying them directly. 

    Many catering contracts include a gratuity, if so there's no need to tip.  A service charge and a tip/gratuity are not the same thing.  If you'd normally tip your waiter then you should tip your catering staff.  Likewise on the bartenders; unless there's a gratuity line in the contract you should tip them as you normally would.  Many people insist their bartenders not put out tip jars b/c you're already tipping them.

    DJ - does he own his business?  Are you writing a check to "Joe Smith" or to "DJs Unlimited"?  If he works for himself a tip's not necessary, but generally if he's an employee you'd usually tip.  Travel fees don't really have anything to do with it...
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