Choosing wedding musicians
Music, what do you know about them? Or what do you need to know about them? It can really be a disaster if you are not too careful about it. Music plays a very important factor in your whole wedding experience. Wedding music sets the mood, explains your character and holds the wedding together. Imagine during your entrance into the wedding march, the bandleader played the wrong music, or maybe he forgot to plug in the speakers and the wedding musicians are late, the MC say the wrong names and the whole event turns out to be a joke. I am not exaggerating a bit, I have been to weddings that has all this happened.

When looking for a good wedding musician, book them early, as you may miss them for they are not always available on your wedding date. But first, you need to decide on the “taste” of your music. You may have a long list of concerns before choosing the right kind of music, but in the end you will discover you can't please everyone. A good place to start is to ask yourself, who is the most important people in the room you are going to impress besides yourself. Or you start choosing your music by following the wedding theme you have decided on. If you are not too particular about music, you can just get a musician who can do from a wedding march to saturday night fever. Ask for advice on how big a band you need, tell them your size of the crowd and your concerns.

Where to find them? First stop, look into the phone book. You can ask your friends if they have spotted any good bands in any clubs lately. Ask the wedding coordinator (if your wedding venue is at a hotel) if he can give you any good recommendations. Visit music lounges at night, you may find some good musicians.

So you have short listed a few good wedding musicians, and now it's time for audition. It is always a good place to find your desired wedding musicians in music lounges, as you can hear them live on stage; that will save you lots of time, if the music is not right, just walk away. You can ask for demo tapes from them, it will be easier if you are able to download a sample mp3 from the internet. Find out if the sample music is computer enhanced. If the manager of the band or the bandleader himself ask that you can come to a wedding they will be playing, please make sure that they have the wedding couple's permission or you will become a party crasher.

And make sure they are in the right attire when they play for your wedding. Ask some questions: do they transport and set up their own equipment? Do they have a skeleton crew playing music when half of the band is taking a break? What are the overtime rates they charge? Can they play classicals and rock music? If you decided to sing for your guests, do they know how to play the music you have chosen? If you insist on a music that means a lot to your wedding, and they do not know how to play it, will they learn to play and how long do they need? And please check out their play list, you will get a pretty good idea what kind of music they are really good at.