Paying Wedding Officiant--the details

loganelaine

We are having a good friend of ours who is a pastor perform our wedding ceremony.  He lives in Georgia, and our wedding is going to be in Missouri.  We aren't really sure how to handle paying his honorarium/travel expenses.  He is a good friend of ours and would have been asked to be a groomsman if he wasn't performing the ceremony.  I know that it isn't required to pay for the bridal party's travel.  Is he different?  (And we're already throwing a budget wedding [4,000]...not like we have a lot of extra $$ laying around.)

Anyhoo, we're wondering if we should just up his honorarium, or offer to pay for his hotel room on top of the honorarium?  Any advice would be much appreciated!  We definitely don't want to screw over our friend, but we also don't want to blow another $300 of our budget if we don't need to. 

shellydiane820

I think since he is a friend, its an honor for him to do this.  I would do what you can afford, depending on how long he is in town, maybe take him to dinner or invite him over for dinner or something.

JessAndTrav

Honestly, I would call him and talk to him about it pretty frankly. If he's a good friend, he'll understand.

I know that etiquette may say differently, but I agree with shellydiane. He'll probably view it as an honor.

Our officiant was a good friend and he rejected the entire payment.

danieliza1127

I would do for him the same that you are doing for any other wedding party members that are traveling from out of state to be there.  I don't think you're responsible for paying for his plane ticket or hotel, but I do think this is just an honest conversation that you need to have with him if you think he doesn't know that he has to pay his own way.