Essex Wedding Bands Find the best wedding band Essex has to offer
Hire the best live Wedding Music Bands in Essex, hand picked for music loving brides and grooms like you by Alive Network, the UK's largest Wedding Entertainment Agency. Watch videos, listen to music, read 30,000+ customer reviews & get instant online prices. Get expert advice and find the perfect local Essex wedding bands below.
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Wedding Bands in Essex
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It’s the home of Blur, ‘The Planets’ composer Gustav Holst, and Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry. Yet Essex is never given quite the credit it deserves for its contribution to music and culture.
Think Colchester and you probably think of a quaint ancient town, rather than the birthplace of Britpop. However it’s here that mates Damon, Graham and Alex came together with drummer Dave Rowntree to form the band around which the cultural movement coalesced: Blur.
Likewise, Southend (pronounced ‘Saarf-End’) deserves a reputation for punching above its weight when it comes to music, with goth-garage outfit The Horrors and many more all calling the seaside town home.
Essex Wedding Bands on Alive Network
Our bands are available to hire in every area of Essex including:
- Basildon
- Billericay
- Braintree
- Brentwood
- Brightlingsea
- Burnham-On-Crouch
- Canvey Island
- Chelmsford
- Chigwell
- Chipping Ongar
- Clacton-On-Sea
- Colchester
- Epping
- Frinton-On-Sea
- Grays
- Great Dunmow
- Halstead
- Harlow
- Harwich
- Loughton
- Maldon
- Rayleigh
- Saffron Walden
- Southend-on-Sea
- Stansted Mountfitchet
- Tilbury
- Waltham Abbey
- Walton-On-The-Naze
- West Mersea
- Wickford
- Witham
- Wivenhoe
Alive Network is home to 17 of the very best wedding bands who are based in Essex and other bands who are available to hire for weddings taking place within the county.
Hiring a Wedding Band In Essex
How much does it cost to hire a wedding band in Essex?
The cost of wedding bands varies, depending on the line-up, and the options each band offers. In the last 12 months, the average price of a 5-piece band is around £1,600.
The table below shows the range of fees for different types of wedding bands:
| Type of Artist | Cost Range |
|---|---|
| Rock and Pop wedding party bands | £670 - £960 (3-piece) £980 - £1,550 (4-piece) £1,050 - £1,380 (5-piece) £1,570 - £2,160 (4-piece) |
| Upbeat and Dixieland Jazz bands | £460 - £1,210 (3-piece) £700 - £2,700 (5-piece) |
| Acoustic and Roaming bands | £330 - £720 (2-piece) £480 - £1,630 (3-piece) £600 - £1,630 (4-piece) |
| Soul Bands | £820 - £4,500 (4-piece) £960 - £2,420 (5-piece) £1,090 - £3,500 (6-piece) £1,210 - £7,500 (larger bands) |
| Rat Pack and Swing bands | £1,060 - £1,940 (5-piece) £2,120 - £2,904 (7 to 9-piece) £2,900 - £3,020 (10-piece+) |
Booking a band who are local to your venue is a great way to reduce cost, as any travel fees will be minimal. The home town of all Alive Network wedding bands are included on their profile pages, and your Entertainment Coordinator can recommend the best bands near to your venue. However, you don’t need to limit your search to just local bands – your perfect band maybe willing to travel at nominal cost!
How much space will they need?
The table below shows approximately how much space wedding bands of different sizes require:
| Size of Wedding Band | Performance Space Required |
|---|---|
| 3-piece band | 3 x 3 metres |
| 4-piece band | 4 x 3 metres |
| 5 and 6-piece band | 5 x 3 metres |
| 7-piece band and bigger | 5/6 x 4 metres |
How long will they take to set up & soundcheck?
Depending how close to the performance space a wedding band can park, unloading, setting up and performing their sound-check will take around 60 – 90 minutes.
Some busy city hotels require bands to load in via a supplier’s entrance, using a shared staff elevator, which can increase set up times.
Following their performance, it takes around 45 – 60 minutes to pack down and load out.
How long is a typical wedding band set list?
Our bands usually offer two 60-minute performances, though many can perform for longer if needed. You could spread out a two-hour performance by splitting it into three 40-minute sets. Most bands are flexible to fit in with your evening, and will usually take a break of around 15 minutes between sets, during which time they will provide background music from an MP3 player or laptop.
If providing the evening entertainment, a wedding band would typically arrive at 6pm, get set up and perform that all-important sound check by 7.30pm to 8pm, get changed and ready to start the first performance by around 9pm. The second performance would then start around 10.30pm, until a normal curfew of midnight. Many wedding bands offer longer performances or DJ sets at an additional cost, including finishing times of 1am and 2am. You can find the booking options on each wedding band’s profile page. These times serve as an example – the band will always liaise with you and will tailor what they are doing on the night to your particular needs.
Find The Perfect Wedding Band Essex Has To Offer!
Check out these reviews of Essex wedding bands to help you find the perfect band for you.
"An evening we will never forget!"
Band were excellent. Amazing setlist that had people up dancing all evening. So glad we booked them and highly recommend. Lots of compliments from our guests about how good the band were and got the evening off to a wonderful start. Thank you!
"Couldn’t have asked for more!!"
The Barneys were absolutely fantastic! They really interacted with our crowd and made a great impression on us all! Thankyou so so so much! If we could do our whole wedding again, we’d still pick them!
"Every guest was blown away by these guys!"
These guys are brilliant, everyone was blown away by these guys. Really nice people also! Their standards are so high, you can tell this is a professional band. Lead singer is simply out of this world
"Exactly what we were hoping for!"
Exactly what we were hoping for, really lovely background music to enjoy alongside reception drinks and our meal at our wedding. Also sang as I walked down the aisle which was just perfect!! Highly recommend.
"The Indie Disco we dreamed of!"
Best wedding band ever playing at the best day ever! Thank you Shine On for the indie disco we dreamed of! We love you! We need another party just so we book you guys again. Thank you so much!
"The futuristic gramophones were fantastic"
The futuristic gramophones played at our wedding 3 weeks ago. We had a very laid back country wedding in a beautiful, picturesque village in Essex. We got let down originally by a few bands and my husband and I searched through alive network and the futuristic gramophones were the first band we came across and we knew they would be amazing for our event and they did not disappoint, they were fantastic. They played outside the village pub in-front of all our guests who were all dancing away everybody loved it. Their little Gatsby take on the songs was brilliant and really added to the mood of the day. They were all so polite and lovely and easy to deal with I couldn’t have asked for more, the only thing I would say is that I should have booked them for longer. Just a great vibe and still getting guests comment on how good they were and how perfectly they fitted into the day. Thank you guys
Local Essex Wedding Venues
We work closely with some amazing Essex wedding venues including: Gosfield Hall, Gaynes Park, Leez Priory, Braxted Park Estate, Quendon Hall (Parklands), Blake Hall, Prested Hall, The Reid Rooms, Layer Marney Tower and Houchins Farm and many more.
If you want any advice on suitable entertainment at your chosen venue, just let us know where you’re planning to book and we’ll share what we know, who we’ve booked there in the past, which of our bands are most suitable and any other key information about entertainment at that venue that we think you might want to be aware of.
UKAWP Wedding Planners in Essex
As a proud supplier member of the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners, we are happy to recommend their members who abide by the UKAWP Code of Business Practice.
The following UKAWP wedding planners cover Essex and the surrounding areas: One Curious Dream, Weddings By Mary, Natalie Hewitt, BusyBrides and The Wedding Planners.
