The reasonable and clear guide to charging for a wedding
1. It’s our privilege and our duty to celebrate weddings. When couples come to us, we want their day to be personal, meaningful, legally binding and beautiful. This need not cost them a fortune.
2. When a couple marries in church it is a privilege for them to pay! They become part of a centuries old tradition by contributing financially to the ministry costs of their wedding. In so doing, they help sustain Christian service in that community.
3. To simply marry in church, everything that is legally required costs less than £350. In fact the statutory fee, as set out in the current national fees table, is all that a couple is obliged to pay by law to marry in church. Other things, like flowers, organists, bells and choirs, along with the services of verger, are all optional extras in law.
4. Additional costs for these optional extras must be based on real expense incurred by the church.
5. It’s not lawful to charge a ”facility fee” for the church’s beautiful setting or internal atmosphere, or to charge an “administration fee” to cover the costs of the wedding to the church. Legally all these costs are to be met from the PCC part of the statutory fee. In reality this statutory fee may not cover the costs; the General Synod’s Fees Advisory Group is reviewing the scale of fees at present. But until their recommendations have been accepted by General Synod and by Parliament, then the legal situation is as we lay it out here.
6. We strongly recommend that the Church sets out itemised costs in quote form, so it’s easy for a couple to see what they are paying for before they go ahead.
In practise…
A couple may wish to book their flowers through the people who usually deliver this in your church. But they shouldn’t feel obliged to. If the church provides the flowers, the cost should be reasonable and clear to the couple. |
7. When it comes to taking a deposit for a wedding, our legal advice goes like this. You can’t legally take a deposit against the statutory fee, since it represents payment for a legal act which has not yet taken place. And of course you can’t take a deposit against any unlawful charge mentioned above such as a facility fee “to book the church”.
You can take a non-returnable deposit against an optional additional service if the couple agrees to pay for that service – for example to secure the services of an organist who might otherwise be able to play elsewhere.
A number of clergy have said that they ask couples for a returnable deposit to make sure that, if the wedding is cancelled, the couple will be in touch to reclaim their deposit and so the church will know of the cancellation. Of course this would only work if the deposit is fully returnable; otherwise the couple would have no incentive to be in touch because they wouldn’t get their money back anyway. We suggest that the reason for any deposit is set out in writing to save any possible conflict later if different people remember different things.
8. An annually-renewable Church Copyright Licence covers most songs reproduced for wedding ceremonies and also permits live music during the service (including worship) to be recorded. (www.ccli.co.uk)
9. If the wedding is recorded a musician can charge extra, according to their association guidelines (e.g. http://www.ism.org/publications/info/). But it is also open to them to waive this as a gift to the couple.
10. If the wedding is filmed any videography fee charged by the Church should only reflect the real expense incurred by the church by having a video camera in the building – wear and tear, etc. Given the tiny size of video equipment today it is very likely that this will be nil. In any case it can be waived at your discretion.
In practise…
If you pay a Verger to ensure all is clean and tidy on the day, it’s the couple’s choice to agree to this if they are paying for it. If so, the cost should be reasonable and clear to them. |
11. Once the final church bill has been agreed, some couples are still keen to offer a
donation to the church. Donations (but not fees or other charges) may be gift-aided. While these gifts are very gratefully received, no couple should be made to feel under any obligation.
12. Meanwhile…the
General Synod is working towards making clearer provision for the total and real costs within the set national fee.
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