Weddings entertainment headache?
Some words of wisdom from wedding entertainment professionals...
The general consensus is that this year you will spend at least 300 hours planning your big day, sorting out your dress, flowers, venue, and a million other things, and you will also spend a good deal of time looking for wedding entertainment. If you have spent more than five minutes searching online for a live band for your wedding reception, two things will have become apparent:
- there is a bewildering array of live bands advertising themselves as perfect for your wedding reception
- most of them pretty much do the same thing
How to choose your Wedding Band?
While it’s true that there are many professional, semi-professional and amateur bands advertising themselves as being the perfect addition to your wedding reception, not all of them will be the right fit for your wedding. And while many of us perform a broad mix of classic and contemporary live music, gig regularly and sound and look good, you need to be sure that the choice you have made to provide live entertainment for your wedding is the right one. Here are a few suggestions you might like to take into consideration:
To avoid budget “blow out”, don’t hire your wedding entertainment through an entertainment agency. While there are some benefits of hiring a live band through one of the many agencies plying their wares online, they are usually only a good idea if the band you are interested can’t be found anywhere else online or are pretty bad communicators – essentially the agency act as managers. You will however be paying a commission to the agency for this, which will mean you’ll be paying an extra 15% – 20% more than if you hire the band direct.
Hire a band who can play song requests. When you speak to wedding bands, ask them if they are happy to learn your favourite songs. A simple question, but you would be surprised at the number of bands who actively refuse to learn song requests or who will demand an extra fee for the privilege. FOUR ON THE FLOOR BAND are happy to look at learning any song request you may have, and won’t charge you for it!
Hire a band who communicate effectively. How long have you waited for a reply to your request for a quote or information? A few days? A week? Longer? Ouch. Sounds like the band you’re interested in aren’t too interested in you. Contrary to popular opinion, not all musicians that disorganised. If we receive your email, we will always reply within 24 hours. If we don’t, we haven’t received your email – it’s as simple as that.
Don’t see the band play live. Yes, that does sound counterintuitive, doesn’t it – of course you should see the band play live; how else are you going to get an idea of what they sound like? Well consider this – professional bands (like Four on the Floor) usually perform at weddings, business events and parties; all of which are private functions, whereas amateur bands mostly tend to perform at pubs and clubs, but not wedding receptions. The main reason for this is that professional bands are usually too busy to be able to perform in public on a Friday or Saturday night, so if you DO see a band perform in public, they are going to be an amateur band, and as amateur bands may not be able to play a broad enough style of music to suit all of your guests, may not be very well organised, may not even turn up, etc, suddenly the choice becomes clear – go professional.
FOUR ON THE FLOOR BAND play at lots of weddings every year. We find we’re more cost effective than the majority of professional function bands, and when you contact us via our website you will come through to the band direct. For a quote, information or just an informal chat about hiring Four on the Floor to perform at your wedding reception, call us direct on 07572665261 or email us at weddingbandpartymusic@hotmail.co.uk . We look forward to hearing from you!