How Much To Pay the Pastor Who Marries Us?
“How Much Do I Pay
the Pastor Who Marries Us?”
That’s a good question. In fact, it has a couple of
questions neatly tucked inside of it: what do I get paid, what is a fair
payment for a pastor for joining a couple in marriage, and why do I say that?
Before I answer these questions, let me offer this
disclaimer: I am paid, full-time, by my church and I consider weddings, like
funerals or Baptisms, to be part of my vocational responsibility. In short,
it’s my job. I do not make a living doing ad hoc services like weddings
and funerals. I earn a fair annual salary. Anything I receive for such worship
services is, truly, a gift of appreciation (although the IRS disagrees in that
characterization, but that is beside the point) and not “salary.” If performing
a wedding is the means of income for the pastor who is performing the marriage
rite, this needs to be given even greater scrutiny than for someone in my
place.
The first question is rather easy. Families have paid me as
much as $200 and as little as nothing. I don’t keep track, but if I were
guessing, the twenty-year average is probably around $75, but probably closer
to $100 lately.
The second question, what I think is a fair payment for a
pastor who joins a couple in marriage, is a bit more challenging. I base this
on my practice, so – as the saying goes – your mileage may vary. When a couple
tells me they wish to be married, I immediately add them to my prayer list,
imploring the Lord to bless their courtship, their relationship, and marriage;
that He give them wisdom and compassion, understanding and unreserved
commitment to each other through joys and sorrows. I schedule pre-marital
“counseling” with them, somewhere between four to six hours, depending on the
needs of the couple. I assign them a book to read, Love and Respect by
Emmerson Eggerich. Following the footsteps of my undergrad advisor, I skim
through the book, too, to freshen the book in my mind. I also review my notes
from Walter Trobisch’s book, I Married You to help prepare my
conversations with the couple. In short, before I ever sit down with the
couple, I have already invested several hours in prep. When we meet, we look at
Eggerich book together and talk about what it means to love and respect. We
talk about God’s gift of marriage and what it means to be a faithful husband
and wife, how to face temptations that satan throws at a marriage, and how to
care for each other. We walk through the marriage rite, the Scripture texts,
and the actual vows, breaking down what the words say, and just what it means
to “love, honor, and cherish in sickness and health.” A sermon is crafted for
the couple. Usually there is a rehearsal the evening prior to the wedding.
Other “contractors” like florists or musicians may also need my time and input.
Then there is the wedding day, itself, with all of the last-minute things that
always crop up. (This is also helps understand why I tell couples that I need
six months lead-time to prepare for the wedding.) So, if I were to put a
pricetag, or to use a commercial term, a “value,” I would price it at a
starting price of $500 and go perhaps as much as $750.
But, I know I’ll never get that – especially nowhere near
$750. In my experience, though, when it comes to a wedding, the pastor is often
the bottom of the barrel when it comes to compensation while florists, dress-makers,
caterers, and the reception-venue all get top billing. A flower-boy’s tux often
costs more than what a pastor is given.
Why is this? I submit
it’s because people pay for the things they value. When it comes to a wedding,
what is valued is the perception. The things that get seen, the things that
make it a bride’s dream, those things get the attention. In other words, the
material, the physical, the observable things are highly valued. People are
willing to pay for these thing, sometimes dearly.
But the less tangible things, especially the spiritual
things, the things of faith, things like God’s Word and His blessings, are
either dismissed or given lip service. Consider why people say they want a
“church wedding.” It’s where other family was married; it’s a beautiful setting;
it’s big enough (or intimate enough) for our bridal party; it’s free. Those
answers all miss the key fact that the church is the house of God. I think I
can count on one hand, without using either the pinky or thumb, the number of
times people have said something to the effect of, “Because it’s God’s house
and we seek His blessing.”
A good clue for discerning value and importance is to listen
to the words used to describe the day: is it a wedding or a marriage? Although
I am using the two words somewhat synonymously, there is a difference and a distinction.
A wedding is an event; a marriage is a life-time pledge to each other. Our
hymnal calls this “Holy Matrimony” – a deliberate word choice to illustrate
it’s not merely a “wedding.” Christian marriage, then, is that lifelong pledge
made under the blessing of God, sanctified with Word and prayer. A JP, aship’s
captain, an Elvis impersonator, or any Tom, Dick or Harry equipped with an
online “ordination” can do a wedding. Only
a Christian pastor, called by God, is able to offer the rite of marriage, Holy
Matrimony, with His blessings.
How important is that blessing of God? How important is it
to begin a life together under His name, guided by His Word, pledging to
practice the mercy and compassion of Jesus with each other as husband and wife?
What value does this have in the couple’s relationship? How does that compare
with all of the external, material things that surround the wedding day and the
beginning of the marriage? To bring this to a point, if someone minimizes paying
a pastor for bringing the Word of God and His blessings to a wedding, but is
willing to spend thousands on everything else, what does that say about the
importance of the Lord?
At this point, dear reader, let me pause for a minute and
explain something. I am not trying to equate paying a pastor with how much one
does (or doesn’t) value the blessings of God. It’s a false dichotomy to imply
that good Christians will pay X; really good Christians will pay 2X; really,
really good Christians will pay 3X. I will assume you, as a Christian,
value our Lord and His gifts a great deal. Further, I am not trying to shame
people who haven’t paid me or to guilt people at my church to pay me more for
weddings (or funerals, for that matter; although, ironically, I am usually paid
more for a funeral). And, the goal isn’t to make me or any other clergyman
sound like a punchline of a money-grubbing of a pastor.
My purpose is to have you consider and reflect on how much
do you spiritually value the Word of God, the invocation of His name,
and the delivering of His blessing to you as a husband and wife? How much do
you spiritually value the pastor’s work with you? How do you value the
faithfulness of your own preparation? Are you willing to do the homework the
pastor gives? Are you willing to sit and listen with open ears, hearts, and
minds to his wisdom and counsel as he offers tips, warnings, and encouragements
for you? Are you willing to sit with your fiancée and dig into the Scriptures
together of the Godly vocation of husband and wife, what He calls each of you
to be to and for each other? Are you willing to be humble and admit that you
have no idea what you are getting into, and without the Lord’s love, mercy and
compassion you will never be able to demonstrate love, mercy and compassion to
each other?
Take those spiritual, faith values and consider them in
corollary to financial compensation. For example, what does one pay for the
various services like caterer, florist or photographer. I do not know the
current rates for your location, but I would speculate that their preparation
work is probably a factor of between five-to-ten vis a vis the wedding day. On
other words, for every hour of work you see, they have probably spent five to
ten hours leading up to it. That $800 floral arrangement didn’t just show up;
it was carefully prepared. Add to their years’ experience, and you pay for that
as well. The $1000 photographer who has been shooting such events for ten years
will make your photos look much better than your crazy Uncle Fred with his
cracked-screen iPhone.
People pay highly for
these services because they are valued. They are important on the wedding day.
Those elements will help the day be memorable, and people are willing to pay a
professional for their skill, expertise, responsibility, guidance and
creativity.
If all those things are important because of the value they
give to the wedding day and celebration, then how important is it – what is the
value - to you that your pastor spends the time with you in pre-marital
counseling, that he gets to know you, that he listens to you and your fiancée,
offers counsel and wisdom; that he prays with you and for you; that he brings
the blessing and Word of God into your lives and to begin your marriage, that
He lends thirty years of experience both as a husband and pastor to you as you
begin your lives together? How much time is he spending with you, and what is
his time worth to you?
The pastor is the called and ordained servant of the Word
who desires to give God’s gifts specifically to God’s people. What is his time,
skill, care and love ”worth” to you? How do you value that? Consider those
questions through a spiritual lens and use that to guide the material lens of
what you might give the pastor as a gift.
If all a couple can do is profusely thank me with a pair of
$20 bills, and the wedding is a lesson in simplicity and less-is-more, and they
have spent time with me and wrestled with tough questions together, then I
thank God for their hugs and handshakes. I assuage their embarrassed “We wish
we could pay you more, but…” with “It is, truly, my pleasure.” But, if I see a
couple who splurges everywhere, shows up to our sessions but without doing any
of the homework I assign, and then hands me an unsigned thank-you card with a
$50 bill, frankly, I would almost rather have not received anything. Why? It
feels that I am a cheap after-thought and the work, words – and Word! – that I
shared were of no great value to them.
Back to the phone conversation with my daughter… After
listening to me, she asked, “So, what is a fair dollar figure to give him?” I
said, “Start with what you were originally thinking as a working number. Add up
the time he spends with you in pre-marital counsel, answering questions leading
up to the wedding, the rehearsal time, and at the wedding and reception.
Remember, he is also writing a sermon for your wedding, and has spent time
“behind the scenes,” praying for you and preparing for your sessions, too.
Include those, even if it’s just a guess. Divide that original figure by the
time estimate. Does that sound reasonable to you?” “Hmm…I didn’t think of it
that way,” she said. “Maybe my fiancé and I need to rethink the pastor’s gift a
little bit more.”
I laughed a bit at her honesty. “Since you’re rethinking the
pastor’s value, is this a good time to rethink of my hourly rate as your Dad?”
She laughed. “Goodnight, Dad. And, thanks for everything.”
That sounded like a perfect figure to me.
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