You wanna use my pretty church and it’s electricity and heat for your wedding, give a gift out of respect. If you attended mass on any sort of regular basis, you’d understand that. We have collections every other week to pay off the debt, and for structural improvements.
Exactly. The fee is for the use of the church and perhaps other parish facilities, not for the Sacrament of Matrimony. If the couple wished to exchange their vows quietly in the day chapel, with the secretary and the DRE as witnesses, no doubt the “stipend” would be truly a token amount.