Wedding Bands

LouMo

Hi All,
Myself and my fiance have booked our wedding for August next year and are now looking to book a wedding band for the event.
The wedding will be in Ballykisteen Hotel & Golf Resort.

Does anyone have any recommendations of bands to use & a general idea of prices?

I've enquired with a few bands (the unusual suspects, the best men, the bently boys) and they were all coming in at about €2500 before adding in the cost of a DJ.

Is this the general price for wedding bands?
It seems like alot for 2 hours of playing but I have no experience with bands or wedding costs!!

Any help, suggestions, comments are welcome.

clint_silver

LouMo wrote: »

Hi All,
Myself and my fiance have booked our wedding for August next year and are now looking to book a wedding band for the event.
The wedding will be in Ballykisteen Hotel & Golf Resort.

Does anyone have any recommendations of bands to use & a general idea of prices?

I've enquired with a few bands (the unusual suspects, the best men, the bently boys) and they were all coming in at about €2500 before adding in the cost of a DJ.

Is this the general price for wedding bands?
It seems like alot for 2 hours of playing but I have no experience with bands or wedding costs!!

Any help, suggestions, comments are welcome.

It kind of the price range. Those bands are at the upper end of the market. lots available at 2k or under including DJ. See the wedding band sticky at the top of this section for lists of bands you can mail for quotes.

Ignore all the following replies from people that said
/they got a band for 20 euro/
/we put our ipod on the hotel sound system/
and the floor was hopping all night.

If you want a really good band 1500-3000+ is the price range. you got to go hunting if you dont want to pay 2500.

mail them all to see whos available, then check their websites (this can be misleading if they have a really good site but a very average band) so check their song list, look for online reviews, narrow it down to 4-5, go and view. Pay the deposit.

jlm29

Are those bands mainly Dublin based? Or at least not native to the area you're getting married? Are they charging for travel? If you're from Tipp, maybe there's bands that are a bit more local that would be a bit more budget friendly?

LouMo

Im not from Tipp but we are getting married there as its halfway between our home towns!
Some of those bands are local to the area we are living in so I'm assuming the quote includes travel costs.

barnaneboi

LouMo wrote: »

Im not from Tipp but we are getting married there as its halfway between our home towns!
Some of those bands are local to the area we are living in so I'm assuming the quote includes travel costs.

Sent you a PM

893bet

LouMo wrote: »

Im not from Tipp but we are getting married there as its halfway between our home towns!
Some of those bands are local to the area we are living in so I'm assuming the quote includes travel costs.

Have a look at the band "the paddies". They are from Tipp (thurlas I think). Had them for my wedding and they were very good. Dear enough though at 2000. (not including DJ).

Its still crazy money. Seems to be impossibile to find a band for 800-1000 which should be loads for a 3-4 piece.

893bet

Just re-read your post I saw you getting married in BallyKisteen! So did I! Ye will have a fab day. Very professional. The step up in service between them and the average 3star hotel is massive.

LouMo

893bet wrote: »

Just re-read your post I saw you getting married in BallyKisteen! So did I! Ye will have a fab day. Very professional. The step up in service between them and the average 3star hotel is massive.

Yeah I'm really looking forward to it. Ive heard nothing but fanstastic things about them!
Have had a good few PMs about bands now and have a very reasonable quote from 1 band that we like so i'll do a little more homework and make a decision then!

Thanks for the PMs & comments

Have a look at Goodfellas (I can't post a link to their site), we had them at our wedding & they were great. I can't remember if the DJ was included or if it was extra but the band & DJ worked together. Both arrived & set up at the same time so there were no delays waiting for the DJ to set up when the band finished playing.

Milly33

would be interested to know how you get on with the search, planning our own too and not paying anything mad for a band..

michellie

The unusual suspects are brilliant, they play in Waterford city a lot, we go to see them.

Our band is only costing €1000, and they are brilliant, can't justify paying much more on a band !!

Milly33

Could give Indigo in Cork a look at. Went to a wedding recently and they were playing very good indeed and not overpriced.. Rang one chap as we laughed at when we said we would go no more than €1,500 which I thought was very rude of him, kept going on again about the gear only for him being nice I would have hung up.. Anywho and they had the tunes on the laptop for later and the dancing was going on al night so nothing wrong with it at all.

Looked into explosive DJ aswell no we haven't heard him live but might be something for you if you are trying to keep the cost down

Uriel.

Check out Loose Change - they play every Sunday 18:30 to 20:30 in Gibneys in Malahide. Unreal.

Liam McPoyle

I see the Bentley Boys mentioned quite a bit. Myself and herself went to view them last week and while they were competent musicians, I thought them very over priced.

Another thing to bear in mind with them, they have 4 potential singers and 9 musicians so what you see at a show case may not necessarily be what you get.

We happened to get talking to a couple who booked them this time last year. They are getting hitched in August but the guy they wanted and based picking them on has now left the group so they are in a bit of a pickle so thats something to bear in mind as there seems to be a huge turnover on the singer front.

For a 6 piece version you are talking the guts of €3000 for that alone which imo is far too much.

We ended up going with Perfect Day.

www.perfectday.ie

We went to their showcase last week and thought they were fantastic. They have a male and female singer which is a great dynamic and their interaction while setting up and during the show was great, they seemed completely at ease with each other and more like a group of friends rather than just 6 people playing together.

Their price is €2200 (but Id recommend haggling )and thats for 6 piece band and the DJ aswell which for what you get for your money is I think fantastic value in comparison to some of whats out there, particularly the Bentley Boys.

clint_silver

Coleman Slawski wrote: »

I see the Bentley Boys mentioned quite a bit. Myself and herself went to view them last week and while they were competent musicians, I thought them very over priced.

Another thing to bear in mind with them, they have 4 potential singers and 9 musicians so what you see at a show case may not necessarily be what you get.

We happened to get talking to a couple who booked them this time last year. They are getting hitched in August but the guy they wanted and based picking them on has now left the group so they are in a bit of a pickle so thats something to bear in mind as there seems to be a huge turnover on the singer front.

For a 6 piece version you are talking the guts of €3000 for that alone which imo is far too much.

We ended up going with Perfect Day.

www.perfectday.ie

We went to their showcase last week and thought they were fantastic. They have a male and female singer which is a great dynamic and their interaction while setting up and during the show was great, they seemed completely at ease with each other and more like a group of friends rather than just 6 people playing together.

Their price is €2200 (but Id recommend haggling )and thats for 6 piece band and the DJ aswell which for what you get for your money is I think fantastic value in comparison to some of whats out there, particularly the Bentley Boys.

great band. you wont go wrong with Perfect day, really great bunch of guys too.

as for their prices any band can haggle depending what time of year, day of the week, and location.

A tuesday in november is never gonna be the same as saturday august bank holiday.

bentley boys use a shared musician model, I wont say how many but I know a lot more guys than that have played with them. its not really a problem, theyre all exceptionally good, but I can understand if you seen a singer and wanted them then you may get nervous.

dodgylegs

Hey clint,

I looked up perfect day but they are booked, have you any other bands that you know of that are around 1500-2000 mark. i live abroad so can't view

clint_silver

If you put a post in the wedding bands sticky thread with date and county and give budget and what style you're looking for bands will send you a pm.

Send me a pm with those you're considering and I'll reply if I can.