No ceremony musician

I wouldn't pay for a musician either. The space we're renting has a resident organist, but no sound system. So, we're just planning on projecting. It'll be a small ceremony of 65 people max so I don't imagine people will have too difficult a time hearing.

View Quoted Comment We're having close to 145 people and the ceremony is outside, so I'm worried about people not being able to hear us

We skipped that cost as well. It just didn't make sense for us. We have two really good speakers for the reception and bought a speak with microphone at Costco for less than $100. We may not use it much but it's still cheaper than a musician. I think you'll be fine if you have someone who can be responsible for the music.

Our DJ is providing ceremony music for an additional $100. Any live music definitely would have been out of our budget.

I extended my DJ's contract to include ceremony music. It's an extra 200 for the ceremony music and for him to play during cocktail hour. It seems much more reasonable than hiring ceremony musicians which was going to be over 300.

Yes. I'm gonna do a complete ceremony playlist. Everything from seating guests music to the Brides walk all lined up connected to Bluetooth speaker. My cousin will know every song for everything. I'll buy a mic.

We also extended our DJ contract to include the ceremony and it cost us $150 and it included a lapel mic for the officiant and one for FH.

We're paying our DJ for ceremony music. We expect to have a super short ceremony (we're aiming for 15 minutes) but we also want background music for probably the hour leading up to the start while people arrive. He has a separate PA system and speakers so the transition between the ceremony and reception will be seamless. For an outdoor ceremony, especially with that many people, I'd definitely recommend some kind of a sound system. I know our DJ got married outdoors far away from any outlets and ended up buying a generator run PA system so everyone could hear them. That's probably a little over the top, but even a 20 minute ceremony would feel really long if you can't hear what's happening

We use two speakers for our ceremony and a friend played music from his phone. We didn’t use a speaker but just tried to speak loud enough for people to hear. We had a friend stand in the back and my officiant would watch for his signal if she started to get too low and it worked.

View Quoted Comment My DJ wanted to charge us $400 extra for a ceremony sound system

I considered a ceremony musician but I couldn't justify the price for the time they spend playing. We planned on foregoing a DJ altogether until I realized how stressful that would make the day of (trying to coordinate all the different playlists we would have to make). Luckily we found a DJ who is doing our ceremony and reception for $600. If you haven't signed for your DJ yet, I might try to find one cheaper, $400 is crazy just for the ceremony add-on!

View Quoted Comment Holy moly 😳

View Quoted Comment He was cheaper than most in my area, and I went to a wedding that he DJd and it was really fun. I could justify maybe $200 extra but $400 was too much

We’re not doing it either. We found a very nice harpist but after paying for our reception band we just couldn’t shell out $400 for a ten minute ceremony. I’m honestly considering no music at all, it’s not a traditional ceremony with a bridal party or anyone walking down the aisle. Maybe I’d hear songbirds.

Our DJ is providing ceremony music at no additional cost.

Yea I had a church friend be the av guy during where we just played music off a speaker

We aren't hiring a musician either. That would've busted our budget really fast!

We are using a Bose speaker and a playlist on my cell phone which a friend will control. No need to spend the money on 20 minutes. I completely agree with you

Like everyone’s saying, you can absolutely have your DJ play the ceremony music. We had that option, but I desperately wanted a live guitarist. Thankfully, it was all one price for having him at the ceremony AND cocktail hour so it was nice having some live music while everyone mingled. If you’re having a cocktail hour, and want live music, I’d recommend finding someone who can do both. But if it’s not important to you like it was for me, absolutely forgo it!

I rented a PA/Speaker system from the rental company I used for the tent, chairs, tables and everything. I had a cousin basically press play when it was time, and the DOC helped with timing.