Booking on a Budget

“A tough economy shouldn’t stop you from getting an

excellent band … and other things you should know

when planning entertainment for your wedding”

It’s that most important event of a lifetime and you need to arrange it all. You’ll need to set up a reception hall, a venue to have a ceremony, catering, flowers, invitations, photography, transportation and then one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your wedding… the entertainment!

Now it’s an expensive proposition preparing for a wedding and one of the most expensive items on the agenda for the day will be, no doubt, your wedding entertainment, but it really doesn’t have to be and we’ll explain why.

Your wedding will be composed of three separate possible music / entertainment entities. You’ll need to cover music for the Ceremony, the Cocktail Hour and then the Reception. Getting entertainment for these can be a costly proposition if you let it be, but we’re going to tell you how to get the most out of your entertainment buck by working within certain parameters which you wouldn’t do unless you knew some of the “inside rules” of which you are about to read. In economic times like these, it’s helpful to be armed with this information, but just to know it at any time is good also!

Why not save a few dollars if you can! Actually, save a lot of dollars and here’s how:

Start with the last part of your wedding entertainment needs first, start planning to book (book is to arrange and confirm entertainment) your Reception band before you consider your Ceremony of Cocktail entertainment. (the 1^st and 2^nd parts of the event that contain music) Start looking at bands that appeal to you and are the kind of music you would want at your wedding event.

The types of wedding bands available, varies and are vast. There are your Top-40 Dance Band’s (the most popular) this type of band will perform something for everyone from Rock, Torch songs to Disco. Then there are your Classic-rock Wedding Bands that primarily perform the hits from the 70-90’s. Swing Bands are in demand for the big band era fan and Blues Band for the bride who loves the Blues. So whatever style you like, it’s out there. But the idea is book the reception band first so you can do what’s called “in-source”, your cocktail and possibly your ceremony music from your reception band. This is one of the areas where you’re going to save money by in-sourcing your other needed music portions instead of “out-sourcing”, or to bring in another entertainer that isn’t already performing at your wedding already. You’re going to save right away, anywhere between five hundred to a thousand dollars by in-sourcing your cocktail duo or trio and ceremony solo entertainment. There’s your first saving. Let’s look at some other money saving ideas and techniques.

When choosing your reception band, as we said, there are many. How good each band varies, but does it have to vary three to four thousand dollars out of your pocket, not really.

That’s the difference in cost of wedding bands. You can find some that are $5000.00, some that are $7500.00 then some that sell for $3500.00. Does the more money you spend on a band guarantee a better performance of entertainment at your wedding? Not all the time and we’ll tell you why.

There are bands that have been performing the “wedding circuit” for more than 25 years and these bands, as good as they may be, are no better then the wedding band that has been performing for five years. Although the band that has been around longer will demand a bigger paycheck, the newer bands out there will be hungry enough to get gigs for less money, and these band are just as good (and sometimes even better) then the band that have been performing forever! This is the next place you can save money, big money, sometimes as much as three thousands dollars and even if times weren’t tough, what’s wrong with getting, an as good as product, for less money?

Without naming the particular bands names, I’ll tell you what to ask when you speak to your entertainment agent. (It’s best to go through a bon-a-fide entertainment agency then buying a band direct. (We’ll soon cover those reasons, they’ll save you even more money!)

When looking for your wedding band, ask what bands have male and female vocals, if that is what you like. Ask which bands have a horn section, if you like some brass in your band. Also you might want to ask what the band is made up of, keys, bass, drums, guitar etc. Nine out of 10 times the instrumentation of a band doesn’t matter because it will have all it needs to comprise themselves of the members of an excellent wedding band. What you will want to find out is the million dollar question, “what do they cost”? Here’s where the major difference comes into play because sometimes, the more expensive, doesn’t mean the best. What does, mean the best, is the question, to answer that ask; “how many wedding have you performed the year prior? This number will give you an indication of the bands worth. If your agent comes back and says 75, most likely it’s going to be an expensive band. If he says 20, the price of the band will be less, but this is where you’ll save money. This band is probably 5 years old and doing great, the new band on the scene, thus less expensive and maybe even better then the band costing $7500.00, but if they did 20 weddings the year before you, they’ll probably do 30 dates the year of your wedding and thus on their way to becoming an expensive band, but at this point in their career, they are still growing, and are a great band and a great price. So this may be your band! And there are plenty of bands just like them, excellent bands growing to be the established bands, as good as the established bands but much less expensive than the $7500.00 band. These guys will be $3500.00 to $4500.00, an excellent band at a fair price. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on a great wedding band. There are plenty out there that may not be the most expensive, but they are every bit as good as the ones that are!

Let’s talk about who you go to, to get an excellent wedding band. Who represents the wedding band is pretty simple. Wedding bands are like automobiles and they could have many people who represent each one of them. It’s just like when you buy a Ford and there is more than one dealership, you can buy a particular band at more than one agency. What you want to do is deal with the agency whom has the longest and best relationship with the band(s). When you call and speak to a wedding band, you’ll most likely just do it this one time. Whereas, when an agency speaks to the same band, they speak to them not only for your wedding, but they (the agent) is speaking to the same band on behalf of a dozen or more wedding parties, (and sometimes corporate events) thus using that buying power on behalf for you. They will get and negotiate the very best price for you whereas you wouldn’t have that buying power just purchasing one band for one event. Again, your agent is dealing with that one band for a dozen events. So what a band leader would want for their band from you, is one price, but for an agent, is another price, a lower price. Let the buying power of that agent work for you. That is going to save you anywhere between 10 up to 30%, a lot of money when you’re spending $3500.00 to $5000.00 plus on a wedding band!

One last thing you should know, and that’s something about wedding showcases, the newest and best way to view the wedding band before your purchase. There have been several different wedding showcases emerging in different venues lately. Although good in theory and what they are meant to achieve, the ones that seem to be more successful for the buyer, in it’s original concept, are those wedding entertainment showcases held at the more “respected” night spots and not dive bars or whisky mills where you go in to enjoy the environment of a wedding showcase and instead you get to sample the weekends foul aromas of a late night drinking binge. Seek out the more legitimate showcases in the restaurants and established eateries and you’re sure to have a much better experience in listening and viewing the wedding bands you came to see.

Well that should do it and if you abide by just a few of what you have read, you will save hundreds, if not thousasnds towards your wedding entertainment!

You might as well save what you can now on your Big Day, wait till later and your see the price of college tuitions … and you thought your wedding was expensive!

To get started, check out our Wedding Stimulus Package!