Once the magic of your recent engagement starts to fade, the wedding planning panic starts to set in. But have no fear, wedding planning nowadays is easier than ever with the help of the internet. It is super easy to find real reviews from other brides and grooms to make sure you find the perfect live band for your wedding.
Why Is Finding the Perfect Wedding Entertainment So Important?
Your live wedding band can make your wedding unforgettable, so it’s important to take the time to consider which entertainment is right for you.
When planning your special day, there are a few things you want to consider when looking for the perfect entertainment. One of our biggest wedding pro tips is to look for live bands that are well reviewed by lots of people. This assures that on your special day, everything will go to plan and you will feel confident that your live band will be professional, sound exactly how you imagined, and that the same band members that made you choose them will be there on your wedding day.
Some entertainment companies choose to arrange bands and change out different band members, but here at Around Town Entertainment, we assure you that what you see is what you get. All of our bands are passionate about music and pride themselves on being top tier wedding professionals, which is what makes our bands the best in the NYC region!
All of our live wedding bands are committed to creating top-notch entertainment. They consistently earn 5-star reviews on Wedding Wire, The Knot, ZOLA, Google, and Yelp. The Around Town bands have experience performing at the highest level venues around the NYC area.
We have compiled a list of the top ways to find real reviews for your live wedding band. Use these resources to make sure your entertainment matches what you want your special day to be like. One helpful tip for future brides is to use all these resources to look for the perfect wedding day entertainment. Just because a band has great reviews on one platform doesn’t mean that you should pick them immediately. Do your research and make sure the live wedding band is well reviewed among all or many of these platforms before booking them.
Wedding Wire
Wedding Wire is a fabulous resource for future brides and grooms. Besides offering different planning tools such as wedding registries and websites, Wedding Wire also has a specific section on their site for vendors. When looking for wedding bands, select your budget and region and it will narrow the results for you. From there, it is important to not just look at the amount of stars or reviews the band has, but the actual text of the reviews.
Here is a perfect review of what you should look for when looking for wedding entertainment on Wedding Wire:
“I’d give so many more stars. We couldn’t be happier to recommend Around Town Entertainment — they absolutely helped make our wedding so incredible. From booking to wedding day; entire process working with Adam was so easy and seamless – he gave us great guidance on our ceremony, cocktail and reception selections and helped us feel so confident in their ability to work with our venue and walk us through the day’s timeline. We ended up using violin and piano for our ceremony, a jazz trio for cocktail and full band with an added horn section and it was AMAZING – so worth it! Our guests are still raving about the band and people came up to us during the wedding and called us after to ask how we found them– they were so impressive! I was most nervous about music because we have such a varied musical taste and they delivered above and beyond! Everything from house music to R&B and classic hits. Our first dance was a Lauryn Hill R&B inspired cover and I am still stunned at the amazing performance they put on. They learned every song we requested, read the crowd and kept the party going all night long. Truly just such amazingly talented musicians and wonderful to work with.
The Knot
Another site that is extremely helpful for future brides and grooms is The Knot. Similar to Wedding Wire, this site is helpful for anyone who is looking for professional wedding vendors.
Wedding Venue and Planner Suggestions
Another route that you can go when looking for a wedding band is to ask your wedding planner or wedding venue! Usually wedding planners and venues have connections with high quality entertainment groups that they can suggest. They are also on the ground at weddings constantly and know exactly which direction to point you in based on your needs!
YouTube
One way to double check that your wedding band are going to be exactly how you imagine is to search for them on Youtube. Usually the entertainment company that the band is affiliated with will have a Youtube page with lots of live wedding content and professional promo videos. If the company does not, or you can’t find anything about your wedding band on YouTube, that may be a red flag.
Word of Mouth
If you have friends who were recently married or family members who had a great live band at their wedding, ask them who they booked! Word of mouth is a great way to find out what your close friends and family will enjoy at your reception.
Instagram
One of the more recent ways that brides and grooms have been looking for wedding bands and is through Instagram. Many bands will have their own specific Instagram page where you can see videos and content from real weddings that they have performed at. On Around Town Entertainment’s Instagram page, you can check out loads of real content from our lovely brides and grooms!
Book Your NYC Wedding Band
If you want expert entertainment for your big day, contact us today to speak with an entertainment specialist and we’ll find the best fit for you! We are passionate about making your wedding dreams come true through the gift of live music, and we treat your big day like it’s ours!
Blog Post 30: Tips For Asking Friends to Perform at Your Wedding
Let’s say you’ve got a friend or family member with tremendous musical talent. Maybe they’re in a band or maybe they sing at karaoke every Wednesday night. Or, maybe you’ve only ever heard them sing along with the radio! Either way, you think they’re great. Asking them to perform at your wedding seems like a great idea, but when you search the internet for advice on how to ask, you find only one tip: don’t do it.
Asking loved ones to perform at your wedding is a dangerous game. If they agree and all goes well, you’ll have a lovely memory of your friend being a special part of your special day. However, if you aren’t careful, you could spoil your wedding and (more importantly) damage your relationship with your friend! We don’t believe you should avoid asking entirely, but we do think you need to ask with reasonable expectations. Here are a few dos and don’ts to guide you in asking your musical friends to perform on your wedding day.
Do Know What You’re Asking (and Make Sure They Do, Too)
When you ask your friend to perform at your wedding, you’re asking for a lot more than a simple song. There’s a lot that goes into a perfect show (just like a wedding), and it’s important that both you and your friend know exactly what is being asked of them.
For instance, does your friend need to provide sound equipment or will the venue have some on site they can use? Will there be time for a sound check or does the reception immediately follow the ceremony? Is your friend only performing one song, or acting as the evening’s entertainment—complete with emceeing duties? These details need to be hammered out before you and your friend agree to anything.
Of course, if your friend is a professional musician, they may already be aware of what “playing a wedding” really means. If this is the case, great! But it is still critically important that you establish expectations and understand how much time, effort, and money will go into this gig. If not, you’re almost certainly in for a world of stress and strained relationships.
Do Offer to Pay Them
When you hired your caterer, you agreed to pay them. When you bought your wedding dress, you paid the bridal shop proprietor. When you booked your venue, you definitely promised payment (and probably put down a deposit). But when it comes to “friendors”—friends we ask to be vendors, like musicians or photographers—we sometimes forget to pony up the dough. Let me say it loud for the people in the back: do not do that!
If you want your friend to perform at your wedding, you have to offer to pay them. It doesn’t matter if your friend is a working musician with years of shows under their belt or simply someone who can carry a tune— they always deserve payment for their time and talent.
Of course, there’s always a chance that your friend won’t accept payment. Maybe they’ll consider the performance their wedding gift to you, or maybe they just won’t take it to be nice. If that’s the agreement you come to, great! But offering to pay them proves that you respect their time and consider them a true artist, and every artist will appreciate that.
Don’t Pressure Them Into Performing
Have a cousin with an excellent singing voice? Is he always asked to sing at every wedding, first Communion, graduation party, and Christmas get-together my family ever?!
Over the years, does this cousin start turning down requests to sing? For him, attending a family event was no longer fun; he felt put-upon and annoyed by the pressure to perform. And guess what? Sometimes, musicians just want to kick back with their friends and enjoy a wedding without standing in the spotlight.
If you ask your friend to perform at your wedding and they refuse, let it go. There are a million different reasons why someone may turn down a chance to play the music they love, and no amount of “Please, please, please” and “But you’re sooo good” will change their minds—or if they do finally agree, they may feel resentful.
Don’t Micromanage the Music
So, your friend has agreed to play music at your wedding. You both know what that entails, and you’ve agreed on a fair price for the gig. Good work, but you’re not out of the woods, yet. Now your job is to toe the line between creative suggestions and creativity killer.
You probably booked your friend because you think they’re talented and you like their musical style. But as it is your wedding day, you definitely have special requests for their set: specific songs you want them to play, a general ambiance you want to create–that sort of thing. It’s perfectly reasonable to want these things (it is your day, after all), but it’s important to give these suggestions sparingly, so your friend doesn’t feel stifled by their performance.
Having a loved one perform at your wedding can be a beautiful way to include more people on your special day. And if you respect your musical friends and follow these tips, you’ll certainly get through the show with your friendship intact.