Gavin, are you the organist or are you singing as well?

$50 over funerals sounds like a good benchmark.

Kathy, I think it depends on context. I charge $225 as a base rate. I don't play rehearsals, and the $225 includes just the wedding and one consultation (they can certainly get me via email). We have 20+ weddings a year here, so I can afford to set it a bit low. I went with our cathedral's rate, and then just chopped $50 off since we are not the cathedral, but the level of musicianship is roughly equal. Our cantors make $150, but are expected to do pretty high level repertoire.

I'll charge $50 extra for any outside instrumentalists, as well as $25 per rehearsal or consultation in addition to the one included with the base rate. This is a good double-edged sword in that 1) it discourages extra meetings and encourages the bride and groom to be focused in the consultation, and 2) if I DO have to meet, at least I am making something.

I think funerals should be much lower unless one is having to sing a whole requiem Mass. The music at funerals is usually fairly basic, although I do charge the $50 to work with musicians that are unfamiliar. Still, the base pay for funerals is $125, so it's not a heinous expense. We have 50-60 funerals a year.

I'm in a large Midwestern city that is not Chicago and has a very low cost of living, so that certainly figures into the rates I quote above. I would charge 20-30% more if I were in DC, Chicago, and even more than that in NYC if I could get it.

Another good measure is the "choir call" figures for your area. Professional singers here only get $40-50 a call, whereas in Chicago I think it's more like $75-90 now. NYC I believe is more like $125, although many others on this board could give a more educated guess than me.

Wendy and I are a bargain @ $175. Yikes.

www.agochattanooga.org has a direct link to the AGO Salary Guide, which should be helpful.

We are in rural Tennessee. My son, our parish organist, gets $50 per funeral paid by the parish which is the rate he is paid for Sunday Mass. He can set his rate for weddings. An organist in our area, who is also our piano tuner, told us $200 all inclusive would be reasonable for here.

My son is only 15 years old with two years of parish organ experience, so I guess that would put him pretty much at the bottom of the pay scale.

Kathy

But Teachermom,

I doubt he's at the bottom of the payscale...first of all, he is eminently more qualified than every other organist in an area where only 2% of the people are Catholic...unless there is a hotbed of Catholic organists in your town that we are unaware of...

Being able to play the wedding music, handle the liturgical music and events, know that playing RockyTop (depending on how far east you are in tn) at a wedding is verboten, even if one of the organists over in Oak Ridge at the catholic church does so, calling it her own little wedding gift thrown into the wedding recessional...

All that makes $200 cheap. Go for it. Seriously.

$250-300 for weddings. Does not include rehearsal, which I do not attend. Any required rehearsals with singer(s) garners an extra fee of at least $50 each. If music is required that is not in my repertory (and assuming I will approve of it) it is the responsibility of the bridal party to supply it in advance. All fees must be paid two weeks in advance of the wedding. (In the case of worthy and less-well-off couples who really cannot pay the full fees, adjustments may be made to fit their budgets, but never are musical standards lowered under any circumstances.)

For weddings, I've had success in suggesting that the families spring for a quartet and one instrumentalist - in addition to the organ. The fee structure is as follows:
$250 - $300 - organist
$200 - $ 250 - per voice part
$200 - $250 - each for violinist/floutist/cellist
I usually direct and sing alto - so there's a two for one there. However, since many of the families that spring for this are usually friends (or folks that have been to a wedding where we've done this) I usually end up refusing a stipend. (and try not to grumble about it since it's my own .......fault)

There is a rehearsal one hour before the wedding and musicians walk on and play through everything once. This price includes 15 minutes of prelude music to keep the chatter down in the church.
Music programs generally include the Pachelbell, but also usually include a good deal of fine music. In June I'll do a wedding where the family (mostly the mom, a friend) has asked for two selections from Handel's Water Music/ and the Vivaldi Gloria as a recessional. We'll also be doing the Durufle "Notre Pere" & "Ubi Caritas" and some other fun things. (We might as well enjoy ourselves, right?)

I will say that I do have one friend who understands how much work this is and was sneaky enough to slip me an envelope with $1500 in cash - twice! For her daughter's wedding and her son's. She was so kind and honest - saying, "We're paying $7000 for the band at the reception - and the music at the wedding is so much more important."

She's so right. And for the amount of work I did, that was actually a very fair price.

@ ryand - I'm right outside of DC in Maryland. But to be clear, not all the families have been able to afford that. ..... and truthfully, that wedding was waaay over the top, but it was their first daughter. (The reception was at the Mayflower Hotel in DC!)

Yeah, I was really floored when I found that envelope - but I had spent the summer meeting and emailing the bride, did the program, and held three rehearsals for the amateur choir members who were backing up the soloists...etc., etc....etc. She was sure to give me cash because she knew I'd never cash a check.....cash is much more disposable, esp. with the family.

Agreed, BruceL - I also am very sensitive to what people can afford and why, if necessary, I'll reduce my fee, often to 0 dollars. That's why I'm sensitive, I guess, because I'll never be rich!

@ Kathy - thanks. I thought so. And there is Charlie teasing me...."flauntist" as in "to flaunt?" Is one a flauntist if they use the word, "floutist"? Heavens!

"All weddings would only be witnessed and blessed at regularly scheduled Sunday Masses and Vigils that are not in conflict with Lent, certain solemnities, etc."

Whoa, Chuck . . . that would go over like a lead balloon, I would think. Care to expand upon your thoughts? Curious . . .

"FNJ, I'm missing a great many things of late, the least of which are my umlauts!"

Ha!

"All weddings would only be witnessed and blessed at regularly scheduled Sunday Masses and Vigils that are not in conflict with Lent, certain solemnities, etc."

I love that idea. It might help reign in Bridezilla a bit and remind her that marriage is a Sacrament. Bonus...one could get rid of the Protestant Bridal party procession. The Bride and Groom could walk in together as they do for the EF.

Heath, it's really not all that odd or revolutionary a proposal. I haven't had reason to research this, but I believe that in many other cultures this is actually normative practice. Besides the rationales Wendi's mentioned, folding the nuptial sacrament within the larger Eucharistic context realizes all of the liturgical goals that seem to have failed to take hold in the reality of the marriage "experience" in the last couple of generations. I don't think it necessary to list those objectives, but noble simplicity and authentic communal witness and worship come easily to mind. Lastly, two of my best friends and former colleagues folded their wedding into a parish Saturday Vigil thirty years ago. It remains the greatest example of a "liturgical" wedding I've ever partcipated in I can remember.

Charles made a good case for why a wedding should be during a regularly scheduled Mass, but no case for why it should not be at any other occasion. Which strikes me as odd when it is the latter which has been asserted.

I'd guess the proposal was made in jest, to prove a good point, but if it is to be seriously advanced, there needs to be SOME case for it.

And I believe you've hit the nail on the conundrum's head, Randolph. That would be the dynamic conflict between the institutional church's raisin duhtruh (the furtherance of its material economy) and the mystical Church and Her sacramental life. In simpler terms, I'm not sure "we, the church," will ever be able to stop talking from both sides of our mouth.
I'm afraid that we cannot confront ourselves with the question of objectives when we allow as how it is good for C and E catholics to burst the seams of our houses on those feasts and Ash Wednesday, ie. "Join us in missio!" versus "O what a bea-u-tiful col-leeeeection!" And for the young church musician, those extra stipends are literally life-savers, yes!
But the "spectacle" wedding, the quinceanera, even some funerals where stretch limousines cordon off the church- point to some very fundamental issues about how we all decide to go about each of our missios. YMMV.

Well, Michael, my initial proposal wasn't said in jest, tho' Gavin's correct it might have appeared so. It was just the most economical solution (literally?) to the initial question of the thread. But you have to understand that in the scheduled Mass model, there are no Bridezillas. A pastor who'd have the moxie to offer or push for that protocol would articulate/stipulate all the what/when/whose/hows of how the wedding sacrament would proceed. For that reason alone, I don't think my idea will ever be seriously advanced by any parish, much less larger body.
Secondly, like the EF/OF=one rite, two forms, a parish wouldn't be bound to one model or the other. But, if the true liturgical model (in a scheduled Mass) were to take hold, it seems to me that it might also mitigate those accretions you mentioned, arras/Unity Candle/mixing colored sand (don't ask!) That alone would make me very happy.
Another happy by-product might just be the realization that some of our homilists would, ahem, have to confront their own content and time constraints, and get to the bleeding point, thank you. (Kinda like reading my posts!)

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