In today’s economy many brides are cutting back on hiring
professional vendors for their wedding and doing things
themselves, or having friends help out to try and save some
money. I understand times are tuff, but if you think you’re
going to save money by playing your own music for you’re
wedding, you may want to reconsider.
Sure you may have a laptop or iPod with thousands of songs,
but there is much more you will need to buy or rent to produce
sound for a reception.
First you will need the right program in your computer to
play your music seamlessly throughout the night.
Price; $10 for a cheap program to hundreds for the better
programs. Your music need to be amplified through loud
speakers so you will also need some pro audio equipment.
2 speakers, amplifier, speaker wires, & for any
announcements you will need a microphone. If you have an
iPod you will need one more and a mixing board.
For decent gear you may pay an estimate of around $500, up to
$1,000 if you want to add lighting for dancing.
This does not include delivery, set up or break down. Now
that you got what you need to play your music, next would be to
program the music perfectly through the transitions unless you
plan on sitting behind your computer all night.
Make sure you pull out any of music with explicit lyrics,
you don’t want to offend anyone.
Start with cocktail hour into dinner hour, all the formal
music, Introductions, first dance, parents dances, cake cut,
garter & bouquet. Make sure to make announcements for each
event so your guests will know what’s taking place.
If you want your guests to dance, be sure to have all types
of dancing music from the 50’s to today’s top 40 since all wedding
receptions have diverse crowds. If you’re not sure what your
guests will like to dance to, you may want to ask for requests
before the wedding. You may need to purchase more music to
please your guests. You will also need to come with a
timeline for your events so that you can inform your guests and
make sure your reception flows smoothly. You will need to have
another person introduce you into the room and announce
the toasts & your first dance along with the parents
dances.
You could get your cousin or uncle to do this and hope he’s
not too drunk by this time. If the dancing isn’t going well
for whatever reason, your guests may get board, & leave
earlier then expected.
Mark Sanchez
