Why do celebrants cost so much?
Mate if I had a dollar for every post I’m seeing on wedding groups and pages at the moment being all “why are celebrants so expensive” and “is it just me or is the cost of a celebrant outrageous?!”…
I get that where in the middle of a cost of living crisis - trust me, when I’m not marrying people I’m an economist, and I’m also a human trying to exist in that same crisis. So I get the temptation to want to cut costs where you can for your wedding, and to try and save money wherever possible.
When it comes to delivering a full marriage ceremony at medium-to-large sized weddings, civil marriage celebrants in Australia range in cost from as little as $500, through to $3,000 at the very upper end of the market. It’s not dissimilar to how venues, stylists, florists, photographers, and videographers exist at almost every price point. So what sets them apart, and how do you choose? Well, that’s what I’m here to help with - this is an economist’s take on why celebrants cost what they do.
We do WAY more behind the scenes than you think
Now professionally speaking, it’s against my ethics as an economist to use a pie chart. They are terrible. However, I’m always a rule-breaker and I couldn’t think of a better way to visually show you exactly what goes into delivering a top notch fully-customised, highly personal, memorable and fun wedding ceremony… So I’ve developed the Cellebrate pie. It shows you a breakdown of my preparation time for an average ceremony.
Now it’s human nature that we can only easily place value on the things we either see, or know about. For example it’s really hard for most people to understand the price of electricity because 1) we don’t really know what happens until we flick the switch on and 2) we don’t really understand how the electricity pricing market works. If you look at the Cellebrate pie, you’ll notice that that only parts that are really visible to you as a couple are about 20% of the total time spent on your wedding i.e. the time I spend talking to you in the lead up to you wedding ceremony, or the time I spend actually on your wedding day delivering my services. The rest is pretty much invisible!
But, much like electricity, just because it’s invisible doesn’t mean it does not exist. My average wedding takes me around 20-30 hours to prepare for, and you’ll only ever see or experience between 4 and 6 hours of that (if I’m doing my job right!)
So how do some celebrants charge so little, and some charge so much?
This is also pretty simple economics, and I’m going to break this down into two key reasons.
The first is that not every celebrant delivers the same service. Confused? I get it. Being legally married is being legally married, and the legal bits don’t change. A celebrant could legally marry someone in under 5 minutes, and we’re all qualified with a Certificate IV in Celebrancy and registered with the Attorney General of Australia and stuff so it’s not like that’s the thing that distinguishes one celebrant from another. That’s baseline.
However, that’s not what you’re paying for when you’re trying to have the wedding of your dreams, because what you need is someone who:
Can engage and entertain you and your guests
Has an excellent grasp of language and storytelling
Is an expert public speaker
Is put together and highly presentable
Is legally knowledgeable and VERY familiar with the law
Is an utmost professional who can deal with your other vendors
Knows how to wrangle a crowd
Is creative as heck and capable of picking up what you’re laying down
Understands sound projection and equipment
Represents you as a couple in the way you want to be represented
Knows what makes a ceremony GREAT instead of just passable.
Hard to see from a photo just how much work goes into pulling this off, isn’t it?!
Venue: Dryridge Estate in the Megalong Valley, Blue Mountains. Image courtesy of Krystal from Clarity Photography
Now I’m not naive - I know there are some celebrants out there who are charging $600 a pop for what they claim is a highly-personalised and completely custom service that will knock your socks off. Honestly, I doubt that they are going to be able to give you every single thing on that eleven-point list, because if they could they would also be charging appropriately for the amount of time and effort it takes to develop those skills and run the kind of business that is capable of delivering that kind of ceremony consistently for multiple couples a year.
So what are you proposing I should do here, Elle?
Take this as my word of caution - approach hiring a celebrant the same way you would approach hiring a tradesperson, accountant, or lawyer. Do your due diligence and ask them EXACTLY what they’re providing you for their quote. This is the only way you can ensure that you’re comparing apples with apples when you’re looking at quotes from celebrants.
If you want to compare apples and oranges and say that my $1,290 top shelf ceremony package is the same as somebody else’s $600 offering, then you can do that but it’s kind of like saying that you’ll get the same meal at a nice restaurant as at McDonald’s. I’m a huge fan of a sneaky cheeseburger and hell if you want the Macca’s nuggies themed wedding of your dreams, my friend, you go right ahead and have an absolute blast because that sounds GREAT. But if you’re looking for the nice restaurant kinda wedding for you and your guests that knocks your socks off, hire someone who can help you do that.
Oh, and one last word of advice - we’re the ONLY vendor you absolutely MUST have on your wedding day. Literally everything else is optional. When it comes to places to cut corners, perhaps the people who are responsible for actually marrying you aren’t the ones to choose - trust me, you want us to get that bit right!
