Tipping When Eloping??

My understanding has always been to tip the pastor/priest/rabi, etc that is marrying you in a church. However, I don`t see why it would be necessary to tip someone who marries you at the courthouse. The courthouse people are getting paid their salary to marry people when the courthouse is open. It just seems to me that it`s apples and oranges and not necessary to tip.

I could be wrong - but that`s just my thoughts.

I`m sorry I don`t know the answer to this question, but I just wanted to make a correction to Kay`s posting. I don`t know about pastors and priests, but I do know that you don`t tip a rabbi. The rabbi`s fee is discussed before the wedding and that is what he or she is paid.

Thanks for letting me know Linda -- I am Lutheran and it is commond practice to tip the pastor. In all honesty I don`t know a lot about other relgions (especially about the Jewish one) so in retrospect I shouldn`t have mentioned a religion I didn`t know for sure about.

Thanks!

Wouldn`t it just be dandy if every officiant had the same fee and the same policies all across the board. Ahhh.. Life would be so much simpler. :-)

I agree, I`ve heard several "standards" to use when tipping the pastor. One was in Bride`s magazine and it stated it should be 10%of the total cost of the wedding. That seems a bit steep to me since I already had to pay what I consider to be a large sum of money to use the church. A co-worker told me $50. Hopefully I can use good judgement and tip and appropriate amount. If not, God will forgive.



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