Fees, rates, for choral weddings
  • Jonathan_CulbreathJonathan_Culbreath
    Posts: 35
    Hello all,

    I'm wondering what policies you have regarding fees and rates for weddings where a choir is present to sing, if you have a paid or semi-professional choir. For cantor weddings, at my parish, we pay a higher rate than our regular parish masses, at about $140/hour, which usually comes to something like $210 for a single wedding (at an hour and half, including "warm up" beforehand). But choral masses usually require more rehearsal time, and more personnel. I don't relish the idea of recruiting unpaid volunteers for wedding masses, unless they are family members or friends of the couple who are volunteering as a sort of wedding gift... When a couple asks the parish to provide a choir, I think it is only fair that all the singers be compensated. Even if they normally only volunteer for regular parish masses. But I'm open to your ideas on this. Such a thing could quickly get expensive, and perhaps that is just how it is. So I'm curious what your policies are, how you manage choral masses for weddings, all the ins and outs, etc.

    Thank you!
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,449
    I don't know how you could possibly do it for less than $500. Probably more like $800 for just 4 professional singers to prepare music on their own, quickly rehearse, and then do the wedding. And you'll still need to compensate director/organist.
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,686
    I know of a Cathedral Director who was being prodded by his diocese to have more volunteer singers at that Cathedral’s televised Mass. It was all about optics and not sound. That Cathedral Director toyed around with the idea providing a paid quartet at weddings of couples who agreed to a 6 month term (BEFORE the wedding) in the Cathedral Choir.

    Then the world sorta ended and that Diocese no longer wanted more singers on television. They just wanted 4 of them and they wanted them in plexiglass boxes.

    That doesn’t really answer your question but it was the thought that came to mind.

    But, yeah, charge them.
    Thanked by 1davido
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,645
    I think that there might be too expensive, personally, even in larger markets like NYC. However, to riff on something that Dr Mahrt once told me to tell critics: you’d pay a plumber, and plumbers are expensive and charge upfront. So…
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 224
    We have an 8 voice choir that will be singing for a wedding in rural Minnesota this October ... If I remember correctly, I'll be taking my normal fee of $200, and then each if the singers are getting something in the realm of $50-$100 each.

    I need to finalize things, but I think the final number will be about $1000 total for music for this couple's wedding.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 1,057
    One couple asked me to bring the church choir for a wedding at their parish because they don't have a choir. The choir is volunteer, but usually doesn't sing for anything beyond Sundays and Holy Days. I asked for $200 for myself and $50 per choir member (six at the time). I figured that was a more than fair price for them considering the rehearsal and travel. That said, the couple thought it too expensive and canceled it (the choir, not the wedding).
  • GerardH
    Posts: 680
    If anyone enquires about my (volunteer) choir singing for a wedding, I just quote for myself plus a quartet or octet. These may be drawn from within the ranks of the choir if capable, or from outside. Going rate (this is not in the US) is about 200USD per singer, about 300 for myself as organist/conductor. Weddings are so expensive as it is, this is far from the largest expense they will incur for the amount of beauty value added; I have no qualms. In fact, I'm thinking of raising my own fee just for the sheer amount of admin involved in planning for picky couples over a 10+ month period.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,645
    Yeah it’s a rounding error and yet.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,650
    It's because people consider choirs simply to be an embodied-android presentation of music they'd otherwise play from a recording.
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  • TLMlover
    Posts: 148
    MatthewRoth,

    Yes! Plumbers and other professionals charge up front and are expensive. For example, people pay thousands for dental work and think nothing of it. That's because nobody thinks they can do their own dental work.

    But unfortunately, almost everyone * thinks * they can sing. Therefore they don't comprehend the training, the rehearsals, and the expertise involved in making beautiful choral music for a wedding.

    I think musicians should be well compensated for their time and their experience. It's very difficult to convince people of this, but I think we have to start, because many musicians I know are still charging the same fees they charged ten years ago. That's very sad, because florist and caterers charge sky-high prices and people have no choice but to pay. They complain about it but they pay.

  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,645
    I don’t want to go into all of the details publicly though I did tell Jonathan and others can ask in private but I’ll say this: my pastor decreed that musicians must accept the fee, to the extent that a couple will not be given music for free and the requisite amount of money is paid to the church a month in advance, to be distributed accordingly the day of the marriage. The individual musicians are then able to return the money to the couple after the Mass or donate it to the church or otherwise not keep it as income. But following the good advice of a forum member who has a lot of similar weddings in another commuter parish, I encourage neither, and I don’t allow peer pressure: you can take, return, or donate your fee, but it’s no one’s business.

    We got paid for a funeral, but ordinarily we would do those for free. We just have so few (two burials in six years, one Mass of the third day where the deceased had been buried having died out of state near family) that we’re unlikely to have the funeral of a really cultivated person requesting something like a polyphonic Mass (and we’d probably only need to pay our non-Catholic section leaders if it’s familiar rep).
  • Nicholas_Will
    Posts: 46
    We don't have weddings at the Pittsburgh Oratory, but given the nature of our apostolate (primarily campus ministry), the Oratory Choir is asked to sing for weddings of students, alumni, or regular worshipers approximately 2-3 times per year, always at a secondary church. For the choir, I always insist that the couple pays for at least four professional section leaders, and I invite the rest of the choir to take part. Usually I have an octet or similar, which works out very well. The rate for a pro singer in Pittsburgh for a single wedding call (45-60 minute rehearsal, 30 minute break/prelude, 60 minute wedding) is normally $125. I've never had a couple balk. If you'd like details on my own rate for organizing, playing, conducting, worship-aid production, etc. please feel free to PM me.
    Thanked by 2Roborgelmeister Abbysmum
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