Having the right musicians at your Jewish wedding is, we think, one of the most important elements of your day – music is going to be one of its distinguishing features, a party from start to finish, with your guests constantly entertained and engaged. When it comes to how to choose your Jewish wedding band, there are a few things to consider to achieve the right vibe for you and your guests. We’ll use our decades of experience working with Jewish wedding music artists to guide you, whatever your level of observance or musical preference.
Why is it so important to choose your Jewish wedding band carefully?
As we’ve already alluded to, music is a hugely important part of Jewish weddings. For this reason, we look to book a Jewish wedding band who have established themselves specifically to accommodate the classic format (which, by the way, you don’t have to follow – we’ll cover that too). Working with a Jewish wedding band means we don’t need to book different suppliers for different parts of your day. Generally speaking, this is an outline of the flow of your day and the role music plays:
The chuppah
Music by Muzika.
You will likely want a dedicated chuppah singer, who may be accompanied by sax and keys, a violin, a gospel choir or anything else you like. This can all be curated through your Jewish wedding band, instead of separately. Music is a fundamental part of the Jewish wedding ceremony and tends to be very emotive (it’s possible you’ll see us tearing up behind the scenes), so we put a big focus on finding someone with a wonderful voice to do justice to the moment.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to have this if it’s not your style. We have worked with Jewish, Jew-ish and interfaith couples who preferred contemporary or recorded music, because they wanted something specific in its original format. Nothing is set in stone, but nevertheless your ceremony music is very important in curating a special moment beneath the chuppah.
Drinks reception
Typically at Jewish weddings we don’t get too extravagant with the music at your drinks reception, because we are saving the really good stuff for the dinner and dancing later. In addition, drinks receptions at Jewish weddings don’t tend to be too long so we don’t need to place as big an emphasis on keeping your guests entertained – this is their time to mingle and chat. If you do want to include some music here, you can really have free reign on how it sounds – we’ve organised all sorts, from Ibiza DJ vibes to cool saxophone players, and even roaming bands.
Dinner and dancing
Music by Totem.
This is the part of the day where your Jewish wedding band really comes into its own. At Jewish weddings, traditionally your band will already be on stage as your guests come into dinner which means the tone and atmosphere are set right from the beginning. Rather than relaxing background music while everyone finds their seats, your band will get the party started and everyone on the dance floor right away – which leads to a fun and energetic entrance for you as a couple, followed by the Israeli dancing which is often a real highlight of the day.
From there, a real collaboration begins between us, your wedding planning team, your caterers and your band; we’ll ensure there’s always something happening and the energy stays high. We’ll carefully curate it so that while your guests eat, there will be someone on stage singing (ballads, perhaps, or something else a little more low key), then once knives and forks are down everyone will be invited up onto the dancefloor again – this allows your catering team to clear dirty plates while your guests enjoy the music.
Isn’t that a lot of getting up and down for our guests?
Some of our couples do question this, and we understand. However, Jewish weddings generally run in this way because the format works. Nobody wants to dance for 4 hours straight, nor sit at the dinner table all evening, and this way everything is broken up nicely. Once food has been served and speeches have been done, we come to your final party set of 60-90 minutes. Everything has been paced throughout the evening, and you finish on a real high because the level of excitement and engagement is still there.
How to choose your Jewish wedding band – start here.
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- Music by Totem.
Now we’ve run through why it’s so important to choose your Jewish wedding band with care, let’s talk about how to pick the right one for you. The first place to start is to decide whether you want a Jewish wedding band, or something else. As we mentioned, working with a Jewish wedding band means they will cover every element of the music for your whole day, utilising different musicians and singers in varying combinations to deliver exactly what you want. However, we work with couples at all levels of observance and with different musical tastes, and some really don’t want to go down this traditional route – which is fine!
It may be that you choose to book someone specifically for your chuppah music and Israeli dancing (as providing the music for these elements is a true skill), and then go in a different direction for later in the day. We can facilitate this no problem; it just means we have to do a little more curation and organisation to pull everything together.
Whatever you decide, we strongly advise you to be led by your Jewish wedding planner’s advice when it comes to booking someone for your ceremony and Israeli dancing. Any band who tells you they have a Hebrew singer should be carefully vetted; it’s so important that they have a really great voice and the right personality, and that they are up to date with the modern Israeli music for this set. Since I got married, Israeli music has moved on a bit – and while most Jewish wedding bands still play the classics like Hava Nagila and Dovid Melech, it’s important that they and you know what’s current and they also include the modern Israeli “bangers” like Tel Aviv and Mizrachi music. If you don’t opt for a Jewish wedding band and instead choose another musical artist who can do the Hebrew singing parts of the day, be sure you have seen them perform and are sure that they ‘get it’.
So, you’ve opted for a Jewish wedding band – how do you choose between them?
Music by Totem.
Most Jewish wedding bands have an extensive repertoire of music and varied roster of singers and musicians, which means they are normally able to accommodate almost all musical tastes. This means they are able to curate everything specifically for you, and they’ll work with you closely to ask you what music you like, things you definitely do or don’t want to be played, and what you’d like for your first and last dance songs, for example. Your band will also change its lineup to accommodate what you want, ensuring they have the right people in place for your chosen or recommended songs.
Choosing a band you feel you click with and can trust is key though, because to some extent we have to give them some creative freedom and leeway to guide the party in the right direction. For example, if you ask them to play a certain kind of set and they play one song and everybody sits down…they’ll want and need to change it up to get the atmosphere going again. A really good band can be trusted to orchestrate the evening in this way, ensuring everyone has the best time possible – all with the important caveat of not playing anything you hate, of course.
One of the easiest ways to choose your Jewish wedding band is if you’ve seen them play at other people’s weddings – this is a really great indicator of what you’ll get on your own big day, so it’s a great place to start. If this isn’t a possibility, seeing videos of them performing is the next best thing – you should always request this if it isn’t offered.
Another important factor, as with anything in your wedding, is budget. Jewish wedding bands can be hired at a range of price points – some are more expensive, which is generally to do with how much work they put into curating their repertoire for your wedding and also the calibre of their musicians. In addition, every band can be booked for anything from a small 5 piece group with a live DJ set, all the way up to a full 15 + piece show band with a whole brass and strings section. Which you opt for depends on your budget, yes, but also the size of your room and number of guests. A big band needs a big stage, which leads us nicely onto the subject of production.
Production considerations for your Jewish wedding band
Music by Muzika.
Booking your band and not booking any production is a little like going to see a theatre show in the West End and finding there’s no set or lighting…the band brings the party, of course, but you really miss something if you don’t create the right mood in the room with production. When we say production we mean the dance floor , the stage for the band, the lighting and so on; they don’t call them ‘show bands’ for no reason! Realistically, you’ll need to budget half as much again as your band’s cost for the production that goes with them.
Jewish wedding bands for destination weddings
We plan a lot of Jewish weddings in Italy and wider Europe, and whilst we are huge advocates of sourcing as many suppliers as possible locally, we are pragmatic in our view that Jewish wedding bands really need to be flown in from the UK. To achieve the quality, atmosphere and format that you want, we have a list of incredible Jewish wedding bands based in the UK that we can recommend – all of which we regularly bring with us to our couples’ destination weddings.
This does, however, add to your costs. You will be required to cover the cost of their flights, hotels and expenses, and will also need to pay for sound and technical equipment – a band’s technical rider stipulates that they will need to hire some of their kit out there, rather than bringing their drums or keys with them on a flight. This often means adding another 25-30% of the cost of the band to cover all of this.
As Jewish destination wedding planners we help our couples with all of this; we know it can be overwhelming to know which band to choose and how to arrange everything, let alone what it should cost. We’ll manage your budget for you and allocate it appropriately to your wedding music, because we know how important it is to get it right.
The level of detail we’ve covered here is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to every little thing we curate for your wedding – we know you’re investing a lot into your Jewish wedding, and not just from a monetary standpoint, and we are specialists in designing celebrations that perfectly balance your faith, your family dynamics, and your preferences for your party of a lifetime. Contact Michelle to begin your wedding planning journey, in the UK or Europe – we work with couples located all around the world and at all levels of observance.
Pictured: Muzika and Totem, just two of the wonderful Jewish wedding bands we work with regularly.