Anne-Charlotte PasseraUnless your brother is in a band or is a professional DJ and your best friend is a professional photographer, it will cost you at least $2,000 for hiring the services of a DJ and a photographer (that’s without the cost of video).
Moreover, this average can go higher depending on your needs, your wedding style, the hours needed, the time of year, the number of guests and if your DJ & photographer have to travel. So what can you do when you have a tight budget?
MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC
The cost of an average DJ in Montreal with a little experience will be around $700 and the price can go up.
Luckily, thanks to the suggestion of a friend, we hired an MC instead that we knew of.
The difference between an MC versus a DJ is that the MC will entertain! Thanks to the services of Philippe Mainville from Phillings Animation, our guests and ourselves had a wonderful time full of laughter and joy during our meal and party.
A certain number of guests really took the games to heart. We played games, but nothing to do with us, nothing embarrassing and with good taste. My husband and I watched more than we participated as we had a lot of things to tend to.
Philippe did a wonderful job entertaining our crew especially since we had opted for a buffet rather than a 7-course meal. Also, Philippe kept a really close eye on the weather as we ate outside and a storm was coming. We were able to finish our meal before the downpour thanks to him.
Keep control with your own playlists
We (me) created our music playlists with Spotify. At first, I had created one big playlist of music we liked (Carlotasweb’s Wedding on Spotify) that went well with our wedding style and that had a certain meaning for us, our family and friends.
Afterward, with the help of my girlfriends, through a special wedding activity (painting our candle holders), we divided the playlist into different sets. We had one for the ceremony, the desert, the cocktail, the meal, and the party. Anything we couldn’t put in a set we put into the pre-wedding playlist. As our wedding was being held over an entire wedding, we needed a lot of music.
By creating our own playlists, we managed to keep certain control over the kind of music we wanted to hear. However, the Macarena still managed to show its face on the dance floor! To this day, I don’t know who the guilty party is for that one.
The benefit of hiring an MC
An MC will bring all the equipment necessary for the sound and even something to mix if necessary. Therefore, you won’t have to rent extra equipment. Since the playlists were already made, there wasn’t much mixing to be done by Philippe, he only had to make sure the switch between songs was being done correctly and could even take on special requests from the guests (Macarena!!!!).
Moreover, as the average age at our wedding was pretty ‘old’, it wasn’t going to be an all-night kind of party.
The cost of the MC including travel from Montreal to Quebec City and back was $1,000.
Otherwise, another option would be to simply rent out the equipment yourself depending on the number of guests. However, without a DJ or MC, if you have a lot of guests, your wedding might be boring as hell. Moreover, you’ll still need to find someone to do the switch between songs. If no one is in charge of the music, it will be mayhem.
DO NOT HIRE A PHOTOGRAPHER
I know that sounds crazy but Photographers and Videographers can cost crazy money. According to my research, the cost of a photographer represents roughly 10 to 12% of your wedding budget and that is without including a DJ. We decided not to hire a photographer in order to save money and hired an MC instead.
Therefore, we asked our family and friends to take pictures throughout the day and in the evening. We are living in the digital age, everyone has at least an android. After all, all you really need is 1 or 2 great pictures to frame.
Photoshoot after the Wedding
Another way of saving money while still using a photographer is by having a photoshoot after the wedding. I don’t mean right after, I mean as in after you come back from your honeymoon. Why? It will cost you far much less, you won’t be stressed or tired and you get to wear your dress again.
My husband and sons bought their suits to reuse after the wedding so we had everything to recreate our special moment.
By doing it this way, your photos will have more of a natural feel to them, you will save money since the shoot will be shorter than a whole wedding day.
We were lucky enough to host a photographer in our Airbnb while she was in Montreal for a photoshoot. Yes, she travels for shoots all the way from France to create stunning photos. We worked with her on a small photoshoot post-wedding in our neighbourhood, 2 months after saying I DO.
The results are absolutely gorgeous. I was wearing less make-up (less to hide) and my hair was just normal. However, the result is so much prettier and natural!
Do you need more tips to save money for your Wedding? Read 13 Tips to save money on your wedding.
[…] cost of a DJ can get really expensive. Instead, we decided to go with an entertainer who used the playlists we had created on Spotify. You can also do without an entertainer and simply […]
[…] the technical part, one microphone and the sound system from our MC was enough. We did not use a […]