Wedding on a budget ideas

So are you are looking for wedding on a budget ideas? Not everybody can splash out many thousands of pounds on a wedding, so perhaps you are looking for budget wedding ideas or wedding ideas on a budget. From what I've already said you make conclude that live music is not suitable for someone who has to plan a budget wedding. Nothing could be further from the truth. How can that be you may ask?

Start by analysing what your budget and costs include.  When you see articles about wedding on a budget ideas  they are often looking at the peripheries of a wedding, the things that don't cost much anyway. What is normally the biggest cost?  The Venue normally comes right at the top of the list, then the lavish banquet, then the photographer and video cameraman and the designer wedding dress. All of these things will cost you between twice and 20 or 30 times the cost of a string quartet. Live music can be a very small part of your overall budget. The trouble is that it often comes as no afterthought. 

Include your string quartet, jazz band or ceilidh band in your budget at start

a solo jazz guitarist, cheaper than a full jazz bandBecause venues make a big deal about having to book a long time in advance, and indeed some of the most popular venues do get booked up one or two years ahead,  there is a panic to book the venue. At this point the bride and groom think they have a lot of money in their bank account ready to spend, so they splashed out on some expensive place. Sometime later they start thinking about dresses, food, the obvious things like the photographer and way hey they suddenly realise that they ran out of money a long time ago and I have to borrow. A live band is now the question. If they haven't been so wildly extravagant, there may be a little money left in the pot and so at the last minute, often just a few weeks before the wedding, they start scrabbling around to find a band for the money they've got. Not a good idea to leave it's so late, because the lower cost bands have mostly been booked months ahead. Never mind, we normally manage to find them something that they can enjoy. 

Of course there are other fortunate people who can happily spend on the expensive prestigious venue, have the best food and still afford to have the best music. They are fortunate. Wedding budget doesn't come into the equation, a low-cost Ceilidh Band it's not something they are interested in, a cheap jazz band would not be something they would be looking for. They will want value, very good value, that is probably why they are wealthy, but there is a big difference between good value and cheap, a world of difference. I like to think that at Midsummer music agency we are always offering extremely good value no matter what's the price of the band maybe.

 Budget for what is important to you

So going back to where we were many sentences ago, how can you have live music if you are planning a low budget wedding. The first thing is to think ahead, as far ahead as you can. What is it that you really want to spend your money on, what is it that is important to you?  If having a grand Venue is your dream and you are willing to spend all your tight budget on this, then you won't have live music. But if having quality entertainment for your guests evening reception is important to you or if beautiful String Quartet music at your church wedding ceremony it's part of your dream, view your budget the other way round.

Find out what it will cost to have a live music group, jazz band or cost of a barn dance band or whatever it is that is your love. Then see how much money you will have left for your venue and wedding breakfast. Understand that live music engenders something very special. It can transform a village hall, make a simple Inn come to life, make what would be an ordinary hotel into something quite superlative. Remember you only have to save a little money, a relatively small percent of the cost of a wedding venue, to pay for your live music group.

 As I said earlier, the price of each music group is set by them. Look at the prices of string quartets, the cost of jazz bands,  see how much a Ceilidh Band costs or a barn dance bands charges. You can see this on our website. You will see that the prices vary dramatically. Why is there such a price difference?

What sets the price of the live band you need to budget for?

There are several things the dictate price. Some bands will think themselves worth more than the others, sometimes with good reason, sometimes without. Sometimes won't do as many bookings in the year as they can manage and so keep their price competitive, while others want to do relatively few bookings and will charge a higher price. These are things that we and you have no control over, you either like their idea of price or don't. But there are other aspects of pricing that you do have control over.

 First of all you can book the band early. This can have a big bearing on what you have to pay. Going back 10 years most people booked their string quartet or jazz band 9 months to a year and a half in advance.  But with the advent of Argos where you can reserve an item on your mobile phone and pick it up later that day and Amazon where you can buy goods using your tablet in just a few clicks and get delivery the next day, we have moved more and more to a short-term Society. Society seems to have lost the art of planning and the concept of thinking ahead. It is more of a want it now and get it tomorrow Society. That's fine, but doesn't work too well when trying to fit an expensive item like a wedding into a tight budget.

 When you buy an item off Amazon it is maybe one of 50000 they have in their and their suppliers warehouses.  You order it and somebody pops it in a bag that is picked up within hours by the carrier. It is rare that they run out of their product, and if stocks are getting low more will arrive from China or where it is that they're made within days. Many of life's needs and supplies of products in today's Society can be considered as having virtually infinite availability. Has Society become more global, production more automated using artificial intelligence and robotics techniques,  availability of what you want and when you want it will tend to infinity, provided of course it is a mass produce more product.  musicians and wedding venues are not currently mass produced full on production line if they are live musicians, so having watched the Channel 4 programme called humans, this may not always be the case, but that is a long way in the future. Music is infinity available on CD or download, and hi-fi systems becoming better, but until we have life like holographic projections, live music groups are in limited supply.

So having everything you want in limitless supply is not the case when you are planning for your wedding. Many of the things you need or want are in short supply. Just as there are limited numbers of wedding venues there are a limited number of good ceilidh bands or good string quartets.

It is a bit like antiques market. There are limited numbers of genuine Chippendale tables. You can get limitless copies to be sure, but not the genuine article. The Chippendale antique is the equivalent of the high quality jazz band or experienced and professional ceilidh bands, there are very few of them. There is a limited supply. The copy Chippendale table which you can order from many catalogues and get within a week or so is the equivalent of the CD or music download. There is an infinite supply of this but it's not the same as the genuine article. You will pay a lot more for your Chipendale antique just as you will pay more for your life jazz band,  and   your reproduction table will be relatively cheap as is your CD and Hi-Fi system, both of which have virtually infinite supply. So supply and demand rules in the music business I said dance and everything else.

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