With all the options for managing your music online these days, music at your reception is one of the easiest ways to cut costs.  You’re likely choosing a destination wedding in part to save money, and being able to cut down on the number of people serving you will go a long way.  Here are a few tips for keeping that professional feel without spending the money.

Fade the Music Out

Ask a friend or your day-of coordinator to man the sound system for the wedding ceremony.  Do some practice runs so you know the volume you want, and make sure that things are queued up for your volunteer so they’re not searching for the right track.

Since you’ll likely not need an entire song for parts of your ceremony, or one song won’t be long enough, coach your volunteer to fade the music out by slowly turning down the volume rather than simply hitting pause or mute.  This allows the ceremony to continue flowing naturally without drawing attention to the music itself.

Create Playlists in Advance

Make it super easy to know what music should be played when.  Create a playlist for before the ceremony, during the ceremony, the cocktail hour, dinner, and dancing.  Name them appropriately, and order songs as you want them.

There will be so many things going on that day that you’ll want a fool-proof music solution.  Doing this work up front will also allow you to designate anyone to start and stop the music…as long as you tell them the playlist, they should be able to manage from there.

Do a Trial Run

This is the single biggest piece of advice for making sure that music at your destination wedding doesn’t become a source of stress.  As far in advance as possible, set everything up as you plan to on the day of the wedding.  Make sure that all the necessary cables and adaptors are present and working.  Make sure that the music is the right volume and that you know where all the controls are located.

Designate an Emcee

One of the easily-forgotten parts of a musician’s job is to act as the emcee for the evening, informing guests when they are supposed to be moving to a new location, taking their seats, and kicking off the toasts.

So that guests don’t have to guess at these transitions, ask a charismatic guest to take on this role.  An alternative would be for your day-of coordinator to play this role.  Whoever you choose, make sure they are comfortable being the center of attention for a few moments, as all eyes will be on them when they are speaking.

Give them a schedule so they know what time things are supposed to happen, and ask them to keep a watch or phone on them with an alarm so they don’t have to be worried about missing the ideal time to catch guests’ attentions.

Use a Music Subscription Service

Try a monthly music subscription service like Rdio or Spotify that will allow you access to music from anywhere.  Create your desired playlists from their library of songs for a monthly fee rather than paying to purchase and download all the songs you want.  It’s a low-commitment way of getting only the songs you want, organized to your liking, without racking up fees of $1 or more per song!

There you have it! Five easy ways to make your destination wedding music cheap and professional-sounding.  If you do it right, you’ll pay nothing more than the cost of a music subscription service or the cost of downloading your desired songs.