Live music for weddings around Cincinnati

A wedding is three bookings that people treat as one

The single most common mistake in wedding music is treating the day as one booking. A ceremony needs music that can start and stop on a cue nobody rehearsed, at a volume that doesn't fight a celebrant without a microphone. Cocktail hour needs music people can talk over, which is a real skill and the opposite of what a band spends its life practicing. A reception needs a floor filled and kept full. Those are three different rooms, three different volumes and usually three different groups of musicians.

What I do about that is size the group to each part of the day rather than sell you one band for eight hours. A jazz combo for dinner and cocktails is two or three players and sits under conversation. Suits Big Band is pop and soul from the last fifty years and exists to fill a floor. Both can happen at the same wedding, and a single booking is usually cheaper and always better than hiring one band and asking it to do all three.

The other thing worth knowing early: room size decides band size, not budget. A six-piece horn section in a small barn is unpleasant for everyone including the horns. Tell me the venue and the guest count before you tell me a number, and you'll get a straight answer about what fits, including when the answer is that you need fewer players.

Timings matter more than people expect. Bands need to load in before guests arrive, which usually means access to the room earlier than your venue's default. If your venue turns over the space between ceremony and reception, say so when you ask, because it changes what's possible.

Everything is quoted per event because the date, the venue and the room all move the number, and travel beyond the Cincinnati area is quoted with the booking rather than added afterwards.

What that means in practice

I also work with School and university band directors, Bandleaders and working bands, Venues, restaurants and event planners, Parents and adult beginners.