Ceremony musician price?

Yes, your price is way too low. You only want one song, but there is set up time, time to learn and practice the song and time to tear down- which they can't do in front of the guests.

You will be better of going on Craiglist and find a single musician with a friend and just have a acoustic guitar player and a drum. That will be well under $200- that is if they have a sound system that they can use.

I got my violinist through gigmasters.com you can put in a request and they will give you a quote for the services and you get tons of quotes and they have samples , videos, etc.

Gigmasters is a wonderful site for finding musicians. With your budget, you are probably going to be looking for a solo guitarist or violinist. But you never know - some musicians are willing to discount a bit for "off-season"!

Most musicians have a flat rate for wedding ceremonies. As Meghan said, there is a lot of time involved that you don't see. For every 20-minute ceremony we play, it is at least 5 hours of planning, preparing music, loading instruments & equipment, set-up before guests arrive, tuning, warming up, sit around waiting, actual playing for the wedding, tear-down, drive home, and unload everything again. There is a lot of work that goes into playing one song!

I found mine on here and im getting a pretty good deal i think 175 for the ceremony and im in MD.

For approx 2 hours - $200-$250...

Some may actually be $300, depending on where you live!

Another vote for gigmasters.com! The musicians can include their rates on their profiles, so that helped to narrow down the prospects. I contacted three pianists and hired someone with lots of experience. He quoted me $250.00 for a 30 minute prelude and the ceremony, and we decided to pay the $150.00 additional for him to stay through our brunch reception. (Providence/Boston area)

He also told me that gigmasters provides a 'guarantee' should he not be able to come for whatever reason on that day. (A concern for me, given our December date, is weather.)

I don't know what kind of band or musicians you were originally considering, but you might find alternatives on gigmasters.com. I considered pianists, harpists, string quartets, etc.

Yeah you're in a major city so that price is low. call your local college or university and ask the music dept head if there are students or grad students that play weddings. that's how I got a cellist and violin for $400 for 2 hours. the symphony orchestra wanted almost $600.

Another thought, since you just want one song: Again, depending on what type of performer you're hoping to get, you could try contacting Curtis Institute of Music (or a similar program) - they may have a graduate student or faculty member willing to work with you.

I paid 75 for an organist through our chuch choir!

I just put 200.00 because I wasn't sure how much to put, not because it was my budget. I was just going to play a cd but thought maybe to get a live musician. I wanted a rock song played not classical music. Think I'll stick to the CD to save myself the hassle. Thanks for the advice though.