Tell me about your wedding band

We've been to one wedding (of about 15 total) so far with a band and it was probably the best wedding. The band completely made the reception!

We just booked our band a few weeks back. I looked at lots of bands online and this one stuck out so much more than any other. They are about 1.5 hours from us so it was hard to arrange to see them in person and they were starting to book up for 2019. We ended up booking based on many reviews and videos we saw. We wanted a good cover band that didn't sound like a typical wedding band. We haven't had our wedding yet, but their agency has been great to work with.

One thing we looked for was a male and female lead singer, which gives a wider variety of songs they can sing. They're DJing our ceremony, performing acoustic guitar during cocktail hour, and performing for the 4 hour reception for $7900.

ETA: Our band will also learn up to 3 songs for us, so that is something to look for too!

I had a steel drum player at my DW. He played the ceremony on the beach, and the cocktail hour. He then switched to DJ for the reception.

I paid him ~1050 for everything.

5 hours total.

I'm having dueling pianos, which I'm beyond psyched for. They're playing regular piano for the ceremony, cocktail hour and dinner, then a 2 1/2 hour dueling show, then finishing out the reception with DJ music. Can't comment on how it went obviously but I've never seen such good reviews for a company in my life and the videos looked super fun. Like I said, I'm beyond psyched. And it's only costing $3300, way more than we were planning on spending for ceremony music + DJ, but totally reasonable for that kind of entertainment.

OMG @ stars that sounds AMAZING!!! I would LOVE to witness that!

@stars now I have to go look up dueling pianos

@FutureMrsM Felix and Fingers! They're based out of Chicago, but they'll travel. I had no idea it was a thing till I saw it in the Knot magazine my venue gave me.

FH and I have been to a ton of weddings in the past few years & only 1 had a band. This band was AMAZING. All of the other weddings with DJs seemed to just be "mehh" after seeing the way the band interacted with the crowd and kept the party going strong all night. When we got engaged, the only thing FH wanted for sure was to have THAT band at our wedding so it was the 2nd thing we booked after the venue. We're getting an 8 piece band with horns and both male and female vocals for $6500.

It's about x 3 the amount of money we would have paid for a DJ, but I know it will be worth it to have something different and our friends & family will love it. To me, DJs are very "been there, done that", but a good band will definitely stick out in the minds of your guests.

@stars that sounds freaking amazing!

Thanks for all the feedback guys! We are still in the "budgeting" stage - I'm making a big career decision soon that will determine where we're moving next year, and that will also determine where we have the wedding. So we're basically making the guest list and figuring out how to allocate money - and if we'll have money in the budget for a welcome party, day after brunch, etc. Note - his family is paying for the wedding, but their only requests have been guest-list (nothing crazy), and that they didn't want a far destination wedding. They're super flexible. Cash is already in the bank.

So, every wedding in my family has had a band - even my parents, who had like 40 people at their wedding! the thing is, there hasn't really been a family wedding in like 4 years (most of my cousins are much older), so growing up and in my young adulthood 100% of the weddings I went to had bands, and they're pretty much expected in my family. FH has never been to a wedding with a band and thinks it's a big risk for the money. Like his thoughts are that a mediocre band is a LOT worse than a mediocre DJ, which I kind of agree. But I don't see any reason why we can't make sure our band is amazing. We have a generous budget, and it's something I want to prioritize but he's skepitcal. I think a band will make our wedding really stand out to our guests (well, not my family I guess, lol), but I think they're just so special, whereas I don't think DJs are really "special occassion". Our wedding will be formal but not black tie, FYI.

We looked into bands as we think they are a lot of fun, but in our area decent bands start at about $6500 and really good ones are $10,000+ amd it just really isn't in the budget. I absolutely agree that while a great band can totally make the reception, a mediocre or worse band could be a reception killer. We could get a cheap band for closer to the price of a great DJ, but to us if we aren't able to afford a really great band we might as well save several thousand and opt for a DJ with excellent reviews

@Kristin - this is totally in line with my FH's thinking. Like $3-5k might be the best DJ in town whereas that would be a low quality band. I was thinking of budgetting $10k for it, which we can do, but probably take away from photography, flowers, maybe hosting another event (brunch or welcome party), etc. I want to prioritize it but FH is not so sure - he doesn't think we should spend any money on flowers on photography regardless lol. I agree in principle (not a fan of having my photo taken) but recognize that we can't throw a formal wedding without some decor and that we're going to regret not having nice-ish photos. I think we need to see a few bands and price it out to be sure, but we don't know where we're having it yet so it's very hypothetical at this point.

@starsinwaves - OMG that sounds amazing. I went to a bachelorette party once at a bar with dueling pianos and I LOVED it. This would be amazing - I'm sure your wedding will be really fantastic!

We have hired a musician/DJ. He will play guitar/sing for ceremony and cocktail hour then switch to DJ. Our wedding is in the evening on the beach so I love the feel of the acoustic music for some of it! He's a really good performer too, we have seen him at 2 different events now. We paid $1,200

@Mrs. Fall Bride - to be honest, I've only been to one wedding with a "bad" band, and in reality, they weren't bad, I just didn't like their music choices. If the couple had hired a DJ I probably would have thought the same, since that was their music taste, you know? We're headed to a family wedding in a few weeks and I'm hoping they'll have an awesome band so I can show FH that it's worth it. I guess I kind of feel like I could do what a DJ does (pick music and play it), whereas I have so much respect for live musicians, you know? We don't have particularly unique taste in music, and would love to hear all the wedding classics played so I feel like it's doable

We knew a band was a must have and figured out how to be more economical in other areas like flowers and decor (don't worry, we are still having an open bar!) The reception experience for everyone matters a lot to us. We also love live music and so do our friends and family. DJs can be great, but they'll never compare to a great live band!

We had a live rock band. The drummer actually went to high school with DH, and DH had seen them play at a wedding before so he knew they were good. We went and saw them play at a local bar so I could check them out and I loved them!! They play a lot of Beatles, classic rock and 90s rock which was perfect for our group.

They seriously were the best part of our reception. The dance floor was packed all night!! They were also super reasonable priced at $1800 which included 10 hours of music - ceremony (2 acoustic guitars), cocktail hour and reception. Best decision during planning by far other than our venue.