Bands VS DJs- Cost

Jenn784 · September 2011

I'm pretty set on having a DJ at my wedding- however, my parents seem quite adament on having a live band.

I don't want to be throwing the "it's our wedding, and we want a DJ" card and I think the breaking point for my parents will be when they see the costs of the two- we are on a tight budget and I know we don't have a few extra thousand to go towards a band when we could be saving it and just having a DJ.

Whats everyones experience been with pricing of bands and djs? What is a typical range we can expect for Average-Above Average quality for both?

I'm not ready to start e-mailing places yet for quotes (we don't have a venue or date set in stone) - my last experience doing that to get an estimate for budgeting purposes for photographers resulted in recieving a call a day from various vendors.

Thanks so much!

jelybeancg · September 2011

DJ's can be anywhere from $500 to over $1,000. Bands usually are $5,000 and up. Rough estimate. Some will be more, some will be less.

Bean32 · September 2011

My DJ was 1200 - ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception music.

My experience with looking into bands was that most ones that I liked started around 4K-5K - then add another 1K per person in the group. That should get you a rough estimate.

tdmaus · September 2011

My DJ is $800...most DJs that i contacted was between $800-$1200... and that was the price for only having a DJ at the reception... i checked with bands at Ebe and such and they started around 4K and up... my FI and I couldnt afford that price, so we went with a DJ that had great reviews on the wedding bee