Options for bands / musicians on a budget??

alexisbooth

Hi there, ladies... hoping to get a bit of help here.

After a fair amount of conversation, my fiancee and I have decided that we *really* want to find a band to play our wedding.  We're both musicians and love live music, we want to make sure we can incorporate live music into our wedding.

Does anyone have any recommendations for any of the following

- Fun band for the reception (we want to dance!) - we'd really like to stay under $2k, the wedding orchestras we've talked to are all 3x that

- Solo artists / small groups to play a wedding and/or cocktail hour 

Also, do any of you have any words of wisdom in terms of booking musicians - particularly if you went the route of musicians who don't do weddings for a living?

Thanks so much for the help!!

kaputi82

We have a well known local band playing at our reception.  They're more than you're looking to spend but the reason I'm saying this is because while they do weddings once in a while it's really not their main thing so when booking bands that don't play weddings too often, I wouldn't worry about it too much.  I'm sure most bands are open to it so long as you enphasize that you're looking to dance and have the atmosphere reflect fun and excitment you should be fine.  It seems like you're not looking for the "traditional" wedding band but something that is FUN.

As far as finding a band, I'm not sure what your scene is but would just think back to people that you've heard when you're out... Think Joes on Weed, Barleycorn, Cubby Bear, etc.

For cocktail hr and such maybe look at local music schools for talented high school/ college kids.

Good luck!!