How far ahead to book wedding musicians in Colorado

Somebody has just said yes, there’s a venue with a date on it, and somewhere on a list between the photographer and the flowers is the word music. How far ahead you need to sort it depends on how particular you are, and the useful answer is the order to do things in, which is what most of this page is.

Start with what other couples say, because it’s the only real data anybody has. In wedding forums, when couples describe their own timing, the phrases they use are “in about a year”, “roughly fourteen months”, “getting married in June next year” asked in the August before, and at the other end, “less than 80 days away”. Read across enough of those and the cluster sits between nine and fourteen months for the music, with the venue booked before it.

Three things stack up to produce it, and none of them is really about music.

Engagements cluster in December, January and February, so a large share of couples start planning in the same eight weeks, for dates that are mostly in the following summer and fall. That’s roughly a year of runway by arithmetic.

Colorado then narrows it further. The outdoor season here is short and the good weather is concentrated, so a large share of the year’s weddings happen in a handful of months, and the mountain venues compress that further still. A June date in Colorado is competing with more other June dates than a June date in a state with a longer season.

Last, the music is downstream of the venue by necessity. Until you know where you’re getting married you don’t know the sound cap, the curfew, whether the ceremony is outdoors, or whether there’s power where the musicians will stand. Couples work that out and then shop, which puts the music enquiries a few months behind the venue search.

The date and the venue. Everything else is a consequence of these two. Ask the venue for three things while you’re still deciding: the decibel cap if it has one, the time music has to stop, and where the power is for anything happening outdoors.

How the day splits. Ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, dancing. Most couples don’t need the same music for all four, and most of the hours are conversation rather than dancing. Deciding the split is what turns a vague budget into a bookable one.

The ceremony. The processional and the recessional are specific choices, and they’re the only part of the day where the music has to land on a cue. A solo guitarist or a duo covers a ceremony and then moves to the cocktail hour, which is one booking rather than two.

The cocktail hour. The hour where live musicians do the most work and the one couples most often skip. Whether you need it, what it should sound like and how many songs it takes are answered on our cocktail hour page.

The reception. Band, DJ, or both in sequence, which is the configuration most full evenings land on. That decision has its own page in band or DJ for a Denver wedding.

Less than most couples expect, and the parts that take time are the parts nobody warns you about.

The enquiry is short. A date, a venue, roughly how many guests, and which parts of the day you want covered is enough for any act to answer with a yes or a no and a number.

A contract is what fixes anything. Until a contract is signed, nothing is settled with any vendor.

Then paperwork, which is the step that surprises people. Many Colorado venues won’t confirm a vendor until they have a certificate of insurance naming the venue as additional insured. Ask your venue whether it requires one, and ask any musician you’re considering whether they carry insurance.

The detail comes much later and it isn’t urgent. Song choices, the processional, a do-not-play list and the run of show are settled in the weeks before the day. The one item with a real deadline attached is a song learned specially for you, which needs four weeks’ notice.

An enquiry with these in it gets answered in one exchange. Without them it becomes four.

1. The date, and whether it’s fixed or still moving.
2. The venue and its address, or the two you’re choosing between.
3. Roughly how many guests.
4. Which parts of the day you want music for.
5. Whether any of it is outdoors, and whether there’s cover and power.
6. The venue’s decibel cap and the time music has to stop, if it has given you either.
7. Whether the venue requires a certificate of insurance.
8. Anything you already know you want or definitely don’t want.

Numbers five and six are the ones that change the answer most, and they’re the two couples almost never think to include. Footprints, power and load-in by size are published on our technical page if your venue asks for them in writing.

Short timelines are ordinary. Couples ask about music at eight weeks, at five weeks, and closer, and those weddings happen and are good. Two things are different.

The choice narrows. Fewer acts will be free for any given Saturday, which matters most if you have your heart set on one specific act and not at all if you have decided you want a jazz trio.

Special requests need lead time of their own. A song learned for your first dance takes four weeks’ notice. Inside that, the answer is the catalogue an act already plays, which for most couples is a better outcome anyway, because a band plays a song it knows better than a song it learned last week. What our roster already plays is on the repertoire page.

Mountain dates ask for more planning and the reason is travel rather than music. A corridor date means a drive with weather on it, a dock or a shuttle at the other end, sometimes a night’s lodging, and altitude that changes how long a sound check takes. None of that is hard, but it’s all easier to arrange with months in hand than with weeks.

The corridor numbers, cited and dated, are on our mountain page. If the weekend around the wedding is what you’re planning, the welcome party and the rehearsal dinner are private parties in everything but name, and those book on their own shorter clock.