Recommend your solemniser please!

January

The registry office have nobody available from their side to perform my civil ceremony for me but have told me to take a look at their list of registered solemnisers and one of them should be available to do it.

The list is miles long. I've spoken to Tom Colton and to be honest I think he's a bit on the expensive side.

Can anyone recommend anybody else to do it? If you're not willing to post price on thread, please PM me.

pooch90

I have contacted Tom, Bishop Pat Buckley and Humanists. All same price except Pat is in sterling. All will charge travel expenses too if it's a long distance.
We've gone with the humanists as we just feel most comfortable with the solemniser we have doing it.

pwurple

Any particular faith or non faith?

January

Non faith if possible but I know a guy who is a Pastor in a Christian church and I'm just waiting for him to get back to me if he can do the date. I know Pastor Jerry Beirne charges a slightly more respectable price though... will try contact him on Monday.

Gatica

unless you're getting married at the registry office, I think they'll all work out expensive enough. Have a look at what people pay for church weddings and you'll see it's not that different.
We went with Tom Colton because Humanist weddings weren't legal yet.

pooch90

When you factor in paying for pre marriage course, choir, altar servers, sacristan etc I think it'll all even out by paying the solemniser the extra few quid.

January

pooch90 wrote: »

When you factor in paying for pre marriage course, choir, altar servers, sacristan etc I think it'll all even out by paying the solemniser the extra few quid.

I agree there but we were trying to avoid all that cost by not getting married in a church in the first place! A friend of ours is getting married in the same hotel this July and someone from the registry office is doing the ceremony and her charge is €130 (on top of the €200 it costs to register your intent to marry). Any quotes I'm getting for solemnisers are at least double this. Madness when you think of it.

I have a few options, but keep them coming.

pooch90

450 seems to be the standard in the ones I've priced.
I see it as worth it to be able to marry outdoors (weather permitting) and designing our ceremony the way we want it.

eyescreamcone

January wrote: »

I agree there but we were trying to avoid all that cost by not getting married in a church in the first place! A friend of ours is getting married in the same hotel this July and someone from the registry office is doing the ceremony and her charge is €130 (on top of the €200 it costs to register your intent to marry). Any quotes I'm getting for solemnisers are at least double this. Madness when you think of it.

I have a few options, but keep them coming.

What price should they charge?
A Unitarian Reverend came out to Wicklow 2 years ago for our ceremony.
She did a super job - the way we wanted - for €350.
We were happy and didn't think we were overcharged.

BizzyC

I've been looking into solemnisers as well, but don't like the look of Tom Colton.

Do all the spiratualists claim to be mediums, or is that just Tom?

alexonhisown

My niece had Tom Coltons colleague Mary P. Losty for her ceremony, She was lovely.
I was in charge of finding a solemniser for the ceremony, and I couldnt believe how much these people charge and how difficult it is to find someone available. Its worth it though if you find someone you like and you feel comfortable with.

eyescreamcone

alexonhisown wrote: »

My niece had Tom Coltons colleague Mary P. Losty for her ceremony, She was lovely.
I was in charge of finding a solemniser for the ceremony, and I couldnt believe how much these people charge and how difficult it is to find someone available. Its worth it though if you find someone you like and you feel comfortable with.

How much do you think is a fair price?

lazygal

I don't get complaining about the price of wedding services.

It costs €200 to get married in the Republic of Ireland, and takes ten minutes, tops. That's it. Any choice made over and above that is entirely the discretion of the couple, no one is forced to use a private solemiser or indeed have anything outside the legal ceremony to be married.


We used Brian Whiteside and his fee was well worth it.

Sleepy

We went with Sandra Losty, a colleague of Tom Colton's. She was very good and we had a lot of positive comments on the sand ceremony (she made the great suggestion of including our two kids in this). I did think it was a bit expensive at €450 all told but all solemnisers we contacted were the same rate and the Humanists have shoved their snouts in the trough too. I challenged them on it to be fobbed off with a "we don't just turn up for an hour" type response but, even as a happy customer, I can't see that Sandra had more than 2/3 hours of work between the pre-marriage consultations and the day itself.

The government have handed the few providers who can legally carry out a wedding ceremony with an oligopoly however so there's no avoiding paying what they charge unless you're happy to have a mid-week wedding or can persuade the HSE that's it's a life and death matter in which case they can provide a registrar on a Saturday. Even as an atheist who regards Karma as a fairytale for morons I couldn't bring myself to do that though! Console yourself with the fact that at least the Spiritualist Union of Ireland, Humanists etc. are still saving you a fortune in time and money on a traditional Church wedding where you'd have to endure a marriage course, pay for flowers for the church (and perhaps have to leave them there), pay a "donation" for the use of the church, the priests time, tip the alter boys and literally promise them your first-born (and any subsequent children) as part of a ceremony they have more control over than you do.

lazygal, technically you're right but realistically people want their family and friends to be able to celebrate their wedding with them and for many of us, that's not an option if we have a midweek wedding (friends/family who are teachers etc. don't usually have much control over their time off).

lazygal

Sleepy wrote: »

lazygal, technically you're right but realistically people want their family and friends to be able to celebrate their wedding with them and for many of us, that's not an option if we have a midweek wedding (friends/family who are teachers etc. don't usually have much control over their time off).

That's still a choice though. It still stands that if you chose to celebrate and want to do so at a time of your choosing, and the HSE isn't a fit with that, you're incurring the expense voluntarily.

Sleepy

That's why I said that technically you're right.

You're in a very small minority of women who wouldn't be fussed by these things though. In my experience most men would think along the same lines but bow to pressure from their other half / their mother / their future in-laws on all the trappings of a wedding.

Those providing wedding goods and services know this and exploit it by charging premium prices and as someone who recently went through it all myself, I can understand when someone wants to vent about it or find ways of minimising the expense of keeping their wife-to-be / mother / future mother-in-law / etc. happy.

lazygal

Sleepy wrote: »

That's why I said that technically you're right.

You're in a very small minority of women who wouldn't be fussed by these things though. In my experience most men would think along the same lines but bow to pressure from their other half / their mother / their future in-laws on all the trappings of a wedding.

Those providing wedding goods and services know this and exploit it by charging premium prices and as someone who recently went through it all myself, I can understand when someone wants to vent about it or find ways of minimising the expense of keeping their wife-to-be / mother / future mother-in-law / etc. happy.

A lot of couples I know weren't led by the bride. In more than one case the groom's family applied pressure to have a church wedding. Indeed, my father in law pushed for a much larger wedding than we wanted, even after we had told him it wasn't what we wanted, and the same happened with my sister in law, who's own father in law dictated a lot of the wedding, down to which priest would marry them. It's not always about bride's demanding X or Y, very often its a couple deciding not to rock the boat or giving into pressure.

January

We're getting married on a Wednesday, there isn't anybody available to marry us that day from the registry office so we have to find someone outside to do it.