What did you spend on entertainment?

[FledglingFTB]

And also what (if any) entertainment did you have?

We’ve found a band we really like but they’re £2k for two sets!

I have no idea of what costs should be, is that normal?

What other options are there?

We had a band, it was our biggest expense. They travelled 150 miles and cost us 1250 if I remember right. They were bloody brilliantly though!
5 members so 250 each, seemed fair.

Completely normal.

Price (competent but not necessarily professional ) musicians as you would a plumber: think of a plumber call out and hourly fee, multiply by the number of people in your band, add on a travel fee.
Price professional musicians with the same callout and travel but double the hourly rate per person
Famous professional musicians the cost goes up....

Our band were also £1250 but absolutely brilliant. People still ask for their details now for other weddings/birthdays so I think they were worth every penny.

We also had a string quartet for £399 for when guests arrived and had drinks and canapés at the reception.

Finally we had a fantastic close up magician who mingled with the evening guests - DH booked him so I’m unsure what he cost, but probably our entertainment budget in total was about £2k

No one would 'expect' brilliant entertainment at a wedding, but pretty much everyone would really appreciate it.

We had a disco at 300 quid iirc. Not as good as a band but for us I didn't think it was worth the expense

Biggest expense after food/venue do you mean View?

We haven’t looked at food yet, so I’m clueless about those costs. But the band would be more pricey than the basic hire cost of most of the venues we’ve shortlisted

Our music cost nearly 3 grand and it was worth every penny! That covered an accoustic musician during the drinks reception, 2x1 hour band sets and a DJ filling the gaps and playing until midnight. The dance floor was packed all night and we had so many messages from people saying how much fun they had.

Does sound like you got a lot for your money TheFlis. The cost I have is for 90 minutes.

How did you all find your entertainment, just searching online?

see user name. We had an all day wedding with street food and open bar, so needed lots of entertainment: We had a circus skills workshop (£300ish), several solo musicians and a local band (£400 each on average), a local 3 piece ceilidh band (£600ish), bouncy castle £120ish, outdoor games £150ish, indoor games, crafts etc (£100ish)....and on and on. We did have an ipod disco with some lights the venue had there for an hour at one point but that didn't cost us anything. Entertainment was approx. 35% of our entire wedding budget including open bar all day, transport, food, clothes, legal fees, venue hire, decorations.

In short, a good band, with some travelling, 2 sets (so on site for say, 3 hours?) 2K sounds reasonable as a main focus of your party.

We look at various music sites, local gig lists, lots of googling etc. but in the end the band we chose was a recommendation from an acquaintance after I put a message on Facebook asking if anyone could suggest someone.

Thanks NC, I want a circus workshop!
I agree with you, as ours won’t be a traditional day, no pomp or tradition. We’re a bit of a shoestring budget but I’d really love to push the boat out on this and guarantee it’ll be a fun day. The budget alternative of relying on a 6 hour Spotify playlist to carry the party fills me with anxiety now, let alone on the day.

No, biggest expense of all of them. Our reception was in local village hall (£100 hire) and food was catered by the pub (£600 for 70 servings of pie followed by tray bake brownies). Our whole budget including all clothes etc was £5k so the band was our extravagance. Totally worth it though - they were more than just a band and took the spotlight from us for a bit, allowing us to kick back and relax. Our other ‘entertainment’ was the Saturday papers and fete games (Think splat the rat, lawn croquet etc) which we played in the afternoon after tea, cake and speeches. (We did a lot of thing in the ‘wrong’ order but it worked very well for us).

Don’t feel full of anxiety. This is not a performance! It’s your fun day! Remember too you will also want time just to chat with your guests and if they have travelled, they might be catching up with friends too!

Most important thing is to keep people fed. Then you can provide them with a few things to keep them happy, but you don’t need to go mad.

We had a 2pm wedding, allowing people to travel. There were sarnies in the pub paid for by us for anyone travelling and that bought us use of the car park, too. Then service, then tea and cake and fizz and speeches. Then games and photos. Then dinner and band followed by iPod disco. Honestly it was so much fun. But it was nice because there was room in the day for us all to breathe and have fun.

Just concentrate on what you and your partner enjoy and take it from there. It’s your happiness that’ll set the tone for the day, not what you’ve ‘put on.’

And congratulations by the way

Just be careful when finding and booking your band - we found a band we liked but then did a bit of digging and found out that they were listed with other management companies under different names - and all at different prices, varying by up to £500!! Also they were not actually available on our date anyway as the site we found them through had not been kept up to date. Was a massive waste of time and could have been waste of money too.