In Which We Search for Musicians

In my last post, I expressed my dream of having a friend officiate my wedding and Everlong (acoustic of course being played as I walk down the aisle). Well the officiant is taken care of (woot!). Now we move on to the music!

First of all, Mr. Warbs and I are only having live musicians for the ceremony and cocktail hour. That's right. No band or DJ for our reception, we're going the DIY route.

No turntables for our wedding!
Image via Turntable DJ

Here are a few reasons why we're not having a DJ. Cost. Some of the quotes we got from local DJs were ridiculous. A lot of them started at a grand. As in a grand for the bare minimum. And if you've ever been to a party with a DJ the majority of them use iTunes or even their iPod. I figured why should we pay somebody upwards of a thousand dollars to do something we could do ourselves?

Hey, I have one of those!
(Source)

But we want live music for the ceremony. At first I wanted to have a string quartet. Classical, romantic and visually awesome. But cost wise, it didn't make sense for our budget.

Sorry quartet!

Image via Cliftonmusicanddance.org

Instead we opted to have a solo musician. It made sense cost wise and it would serve our small wedding. There were a few sounds we knew we didn't like.Violin was a nice, but not as nice when accompanied by another instrument like a guitar. We also knew we didn't want a harp.

Classy, but not for me

Image via Boston Wedding Harpist

In the end we decided to go with the guitar. Most of the ooey gooey songs I love are acoustic covers: Everlong, Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez and Thirteen by Elliot Smith. So far I've found a few solo guitarists who seem to be reasonably priced. And more importantly, have good samples of their music.

So to recap, for the ceremony and cocktail hour we'll have live acoustic guitar playing. During the reception, we'll have our own hand crafted playlist to rock our guests' faces off. The playlist is currently under construction, but shows promise for an awesome time! iTunes reception, here we come!

Are you going the iTunes route?