So what would you look for in a good wedding band ?

If you are organising your own wedding and you are trying to book the best florist, best cake maker, best hotel, etc etc that suits your needs it can be an overwhelming task. If you have certain criteria set up though it can help you to more easily weed out what you don't want. So how do you choose a band that best suits you? The first consideration always is are they good entertainers. Can they perform the music in a competent and professional way, engaging the audience and basically singing and playing in tune. This may sound like basic stuff, but there are a lot of Wedding bands out there who are just not very good at playing music. How do you find this out ? just go and see them at a gig, you'll pretty much be able to tell in a few minutes if they have any musical talent. It's kinda like the x factor auditions, its obvious after 10 seconds if they have it or not :D. As regards videos online, you will be able to tell a certain amount from an online video but be careful here because a video can either make the band seem better than they are if its done by a really professional video company, or worse if its just a phone video from a dark and dingy gig with bad sound quality. It's not enough that they can play though, this is just the first step. The next criteria is do they have a set of songs that will make them a good band at a wedding. A mistake many wedding couples make is they have seen a band often and have become big fans of them, but have only ever seen them in a pub or club environment. They can be fantastic in that setting where people are just listening to their excellent musicianship and their amazing Pink Floyd or Thin Lizzy covers, but put them on the stage at a wedding and it just won't work. So if you can go to see them live at a wedding or at a function where getting guests up dancing is the priority. If I was asked to choose a band for a wedding, I'd say a band of average musicians with the right material is far better than the best musicians ever with the wrong material. Another massive consideration would be relaibility, after all you want them to be organised enough to turn up on your day, so you are better to hire a band that does regular wedding work and are organised for that. I guess also under the heading of professionalism would be the appearance and dress onstage of the band members, all of the guests have made a special effort to dress well on the day, I think the band should also make the same effort to look good, torn jeans and a bad tshirt simply isn't good enough. After that I guess cost is a major factor. Don't assume because a band is expensive that they must be really good, this isn't always true. Because the Band is such an important part of the day in terms of creating a happy party atmosphere I would encourage couples to be sensible about not cutting too many corners when it comes to the Wedding Band. Thats my twoppence worth anyway i hope it helps some of you to choose the right Wedding band for you :)