Still shopping around for the Best Wedding Band and Saxophone Melbourne? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
Today we’re going to do a deep dive on the topic of live Melbourne wedding music prices. We’re going to be discussing why the prices of live musicians and a live performance is typically more expensive for a wedding. As compared with say… a pub performance.
Pete our trusty Sax player knows all about playing in a 5 Piece Band
At Ms Lexi & Celestial Band we’ve had the privilege of playing at a massive variety of events and venues. Everything from local pubs, grungy bars, to Christenings, Anniversaries, Birthday Parties, Corporate Events, Christmas parties, Gala Balls, and lots and lots of Weddings! We’ve performed at weddings with full on built out stages, weddings where the stage overlooks a ballroom, and weddings where the band or musicians are just tucked away in the corner. It’s all good, and it’s all performing, so it’s all in our wheelhouse!
The wedding industry has sometimes been accused of being “in a bubble”. At Ms Lexi & Celestial Band, our prices are nowhere near the highest in the market. In fact, we sit pretty much in the middle of the market with our price range. We want clients to choose us based on the quality of our band, musicianship, and the leadership provided by singer Lexi Ross.
Wedding Band and Saxophone
Why Is Live Music for Weddings More Expensive?
Client Liaison:
- We generally speak to our wedding clients a LOT in the lead up to the wedding. Lots of emails, phone calls and texts. Just getting up to speed with how the day will run. We get clients to look at our Song list in a Word doc, and tell us 10 songs they love, and any songs that they definitively don’t want played at the wedding. Then we incorporate all those preferences into our music on the day. All that client liaison takes up more time compared with a normal, run of the mill gig.
Weddings Are A More High-Pressure Gig:
- If you think about the vibe performing at a wine bar, or a restaurant. There are no formalities, and there’s no run sheet. The job is just to play 3 or 4 sets, and pretty much start and finish on time. Weddings are not like this. With weddings, we may go so far as to actually write the run sheet for the client. Or we’ll get the run sheet from the venue, and then write our band sets into it. Either way we need to make sure that the timing of our music is all on point. Entrance songs? First dances? It all needs to be exactly when it needs to be, and this is what makes a wedding a more high-pressure gig!
Time Spent Learning Song Requests:
- After clients give us all their preference songs, we then take extra song requests. With these songs, Lexi Ross and the rest of the band has to learn the from scratch and rehearse together. Often these significant songs will be played at the Ceremony, and for the First Dance. We take extra special care when learning your song requests, and ensure not only are they a professional standard, but they sound really beautiful on the day. This means time spent learning, and practice, practice, practice!
Extra Special Touches:
- As leading wedding singers and musicians, we want to look the part. It might be okay to wear a ‘5 seasons ago’ dress for a gig that is just down at the local function centre. However, when we make the effort to create an amazing showcase, or perform at a clients wedding, we’ll often hire a dress. A hired dress doesn’t have to break the bank, there’s some amazing piece available for hire from $70. Our preferred supplier for hiring beautiful dresses is Her Style Au in Melbourne. They’re located in Ivanhoe, and are super chilled when it comes to dress hire. Similarly, if we need more lights for our wedding band set up, we’ll go and buy them. All these little details can add up financially. But it’s all the finishing touches that we do, that truly make us Melbourne’s Best wedding and function band. Lets ask you a question, when you order something like a food hamper and it comes in a beautifully made box and you can tell everything inside is high quality, do you value it more? If yes, then you’ll understand why presentation as well as musicianship, is all very important to us!
Postponements/ Cancelations:
- We don’t charge more for this, but this definitely a challenge we’ve been facing in the current Melbourne COVID 19 climate. We currently don’t charge clients if they decide to postpone their wedding. We do however have a small non-refundable booking fee which helps to cover a portion of our band admin fees, in the unlikely event that a couple cancels their wedding altogether. Unfortunately, in this climate, many people have made the decision to downsize or cancel their wedding all together, rather then postpone.
Wedding Are Usually on Friday or Saturday Nights:
- While not all weddings are on these days of the week, a lot of them are. Booking a Soloist, Acoustic Duo, Acoustic Trio or full wedding band on a Friday or Saturday night is usually more expensive than during the week. We have standard package prices that are already very affordable. If your wedding is on a Monday- Thursday we may be able to give couples discounts, or free things, but if it’s on the two busiest nights of the weeks, our standard rates apply.
Wedding Band and Saxophone
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading all this juicy information for understanding our wedding band pricing! If you’re looking for the best Melbourne Wedding Band and Saxophone, click here. To check out what we’ve been up to recently as a band, have a look at our latest videos! Our prices start at $500 for a Soloist at your next function. Our packages go right up to a 5 Piece Wedding band, with our Acoustic Duo for your Ceremony and FREE Canapés musician for $2890 inc GST. We have some other very cool special offers and can absolutely MC your next event or wedding! Chat to us today, the live music experts. But now we’re off to go and learn a few more songs! To book a date with us speak to Lexi on 0467375489 or email lexi@celestialband.net
