set price to get married

We are planning to get married next year. So i've Just been in contact with the priest's helper to arrange a date and have been told it will cost us 700 euro to get married(as far as i know thats just to use the church). Then we give the priest a "donation" then we give the person that helps set /opens up the church a "suggested" donation of 50 euro. Is this the going rate or is the church being greedy? I knew we had to give a donation but didn't realise there was a set price.

it may be a set price at the specific church you intend getting married it.

No fee was suggested to us and we give 250 to him and 20 to each alter server.

We had a set price for the church and had to pay the priest and sacristen also.

Remember that you dont have to use the local priest so the church needs to ensure they get something out of it for use of their building, esb, maintenance of church etc

Personally i think dont see the problem. People fork out thousands for everthing else on the day and seem to forget that the church is the setting for this beautiful day and seem to want to pay as little as possible.

Might i also add that a lot of couples are coming down the country from Dublin to get married and are putting a lot of pressure on local priests. I know there were over 100 weddings in my parish last year.

Made me think that our priest told couples from outside the area that the price was X ( high price ) to dicourage rather than say no.

The fee for our church was €350 and on top of that we paid our priest and the sacristan. We gave the sacristan €50 and the priest €200. So €600 all in. On top of that we had the flowers and music so maybe €1,000 for the entire church part of the day. Compared to what we spent in the hotel, it was a fraction of the cost for what is the most important part of the day for most people.

OP - your fee seems high, €700 for the church alone. Does that include flowers maybe? Some churches don't allow you to bring your own.

HI. No flowers are not included it is basically just for the local church. We have a relative who is a priest so we were going to ask him to perform the ceremony. Its not that we have a problem giving a donation which probably would have been a couple of hundred anyway but more surprised that we were told how much. We were planning a small wedding maybe 50 guests so its not as if we were going overboard just a nice simple day. Everything else costs so much we didnt expect the church to be so expensive.

Although the priest is, of course, entitled to set a fixed fee, I would be rather surprised if it is actually fixed. Slightly zealous assistant perhaps? Why not check with priest -but see can you get both priest and assistant in the one place at the one time before raising it; then just say 'look I know you said the church would be €700 but it is a very small wedding and we don't mind cleaning up etc. Is there any way we can get this cost down a wee bit?' ( I am assuming you can round up a few teenagers somewhere in the extended family to do the needful)

Our local church have a charge of €250.00. It is for the use of the church. I know someone who has paid and the priest that is marrying them is a family friend from outside the parish so the charge as nothing got to do with him. They also got a form from the parish finance committee to file out to claim back income tax on this fee which I thought a bit strange. I thought that was only for donations to your church or charity.
There is a standard form in our parish that you fill out to book the church and it states on it that the charge is €250.00.