Officiant - Professions vs Friend? How much did you pay?

I can't attest to the price point as I'm based in the UK, but we had this same debate and ended up deciding that having a professional celebrant would take stress off us.

We felt that if we were expecting a friend or family member to do it we would need to be much more heavily involved in the ceremonial preparations and final wording. For us this was off-putting as we are organising a wedding in a very short timeframe (less than 5 months from the 'yes' day), we didn't want the extra stress of yet another thing to focus on - but I imagine for some people this could be a positive experience if you'd like to get more involved with it.

Obviously a celebrant's ceremony is still very personalised and we can put a lot of 'us' into it, but she has lots of helpful suggestions for wording, themes, etc which we're finding really useful.

Another reason to go with the celebrant was that I felt it was a lot of pressure to put on our loved ones - but if you have someone up for the challenge I think its a super cute idea if you're into it!

Cost wise I found celebrants ranged hugely from £500 - £850... we managed to do some haggling and got somebody down to £395 though, so definitely worth asking if there's any flexibility in their pricing!

Well we had a 1 but something happened so that officiant didn't work out. And the other we dont have the time to 6 mos of counseling session so we have asked a friend to do it and they understand the importance of the wedding ceremony is. For our price point its lower $250.

I feel like the friend could still be professional if they're following a script! there's a ton of templates out there that they follow. i've seen friends be officiants for weddings and it turns out just as good sometimes, ya know?

Our friend officiated for us and he did a fantastic job! He asked not to be paid and said it was his wedding gift to us (we still gave him a nice bottle of liquor as a thank you). He cobbled together a script using a couple free sources online. We sat down together beforehand and talked through what parts of the ceremony we (my husband and I) wanted to include/exclude such as additional readings, prayer, parents of the bride "giving her away", etc. He is my husband's best friend so he already knew our personalities and our relationship quite well.



It is a lot of pressure for one person but, if you know someone who is up to the task, it can be well worth it to have a friend/family member be your officiant.

I am in a HCoL area and prices ranged from 275 to 400. I think 300 to 350 was the mean


Did you have a specific friend in mind? They would have to get a license to become an officiant of the day then mail in your license, so there is labor involved behind the scenes. Are you going to have a mic that's being handled by a pro such as a DJ? Do you have a script you like already? Is this person comfortable with public speaking?
All things to consider

What do you mean by not ‘professional’? We are having a family friend officiant our wedding to save money. I also saw a few different officiants in TX as well that were $450 up to $800 and I said absolutely not. We’re not having a long ceremony and didn’t want to pay that much for less than an hour.

We're getting my fiance's dad to do it! He's already a licensed officiant, and he's done a few weddings before. I would say try to see if any of your friends are already officiated and have already done weddings. That way, the wedding will seem more professional, as you have an experienced person doing it!

That sounds like a reasonable price to me. We had a family member do it, but he's clergy and does weddings all the time. He was technically free, but as thanks, we donated to a charity that he picked. So even if you use a friend, you should probably get a special gift to thank them, which could cost $$. It also depends what you want in your ceremony, since professional officiants may be less flexible due to religious restrictions.

Not everyone is comfortable with public speaking in front of strangers. Some people have loads of confidence but they overcompensate their lack of experience and professionalism by being inappropriate and awkward. At the same time, just because someone is a professional vendor, they still need to be vetted. Finding the right person you both mesh with is a fine art. It’s also the most important part of the day even though it’s treated as a last minute inconvenience.


Price varies based a wide range of options and your location (big city vs small town).
We are in a high cost of living area. Most vendors we have been able to find a wide range of prices including budget options, and flexibility with what they offer, which the mainstream online resources say don’t exist. Someone is hiring them and they have great reviews on Yelp and Google. As far as officiants, there is zero flexibility in pricing, at least in our location. You basically have 3 options if you are not a practicing member of a house of worship: 1) have a trusted friend or relative ordained for the day via the marriage license office at the cost of the license, 2) pick your top 10 max capacity guests to attend a Vegas style chapel in the ballpark of $400-600 which doesn’t include reception or 3) you can hire a full service officiant who will write the ceremony for you with minimal input from you for $750-1000+. Some in 3rd option will go to City Hall on your behalf to provide all notary services in accessing and filing the license to save you a trip. Options outside of those parameters are nonexistent. As painful as it is to pay the prices that the officiants want to have more than 10 guests, that is our best option considering that our family/friend group is largely introverted and would not handle public speaking in front of strangers well.

I’m leaning towards the idea of having somebody professional, as that is the most important part of the wedding so if $450 is not a stretch I would go for it.

We had my cousin to officiate our wedding and she is a pastor. She was great officiating wedding. She had done a few wedding before ours. She has a great personality all around bc that she is who she is. Everyone enjoyed her. We ended up paying $350.