Oh, bands - we had a small group which has now gone big scale: https://cagenmusic.com/ We hired them because Don Cagen always blew the shofar at High Holiday services at our synagogue and did a great job. They were fantastic.
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Can you compare weddings if today to weddings 30-40+ years ago? Not a sarcastic remark but a genuine one - are options too different now?
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Certainly the options we used 27 years ago are very different today. But perhaps thinking back generally to what was special so many years later might be helpful in navigating today’s high power wedding industry. I know there were wedding planners in my day, but we did it all ourselves. My SIL did use a planner - and hair and makeup, but just for herself and her mother.
The best wedding band I ever experienced was the groom’s own band. They had someone else play bass that day. They played the music we liked not old fogey music. 
My band played swing and Andrews sisters. They were good, but I realize afterwards I’d actually have been much happier with the music we played at parties. Not my parent’s music.
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My kids said that we would all have input into the music … and then we didn’t. No worries. I played MY music at the Friday-night event! 
Todd Rundgren I Saw the Light FTW! I played Beyonce Love on Top, too, and then it turns out that that’s what the couple and wedding people walked into the reception to! Ds1 and I have similar tastes in music so I knew the reception would be great.
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We did not have cut flowers, but instead ordered a few potted flowering plants, then donated the plants. Reception was a brunch buffet instead of a dinner. Delicious and less expensive. Guests seemed to appreciate the slightly different meal venue and time of day. No band.
A favorite wedding venue I attended, was a back-yard picnic. Informal but fun. Whole families, including their children, were able to attend and enjoy.
Obviously I lean toward the informal 
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No matter how great the band they always seem to want to hear themselves and blast everyone out of the building. Last wedding I went to more than half of the guests left (all older of course but a lot of couples relatives). You couldn’t hear the person in the chair next to you. It was a beautiful venue, great food etc but not worth it. Many people just gave their regrets and exited the room. Very sad actually.
Scope out the venue–lots of glass, high ceilings, lack of carpet, drapes or other sound dampening items will make a place overly loud even minus any music. Have someone do a sound check with the band during setup.
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We had a band at DDs wedding. We are a family of musicians and having a DJ just didn’t work for me. Our daughter had a nice talk with the lead of the band about the volume…and I have to say, it was fine. And they also didn’t play during dinner (some quiet recorded background music played).
Definitely line up folks to help you take things with you that you want taken after the reception. Our fabulous neighbors brought home all the potted plants and a bunch of other stuff. It sure saved us time having to figure that out!
Best advice I got was to just have fun…and we did!
Oh…and the bar had a special MOB drink for me! Plan ahead to make sure they have the ingredients for something you like!
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At one of my high school reunions the music (DJ I think) was so loud that I ended up going out to lobby to talk with old friends. That was a shame.
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Bands do create a different feel sometimes (good or bad I guess!).
I was at a wedding recently where the band was just amazing. Everyone was up dancing - so much fun! The food was perhaps not the greatest - but the vibe and good times dancing were what we remembered!
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D’s DJ was awesome. They had to find someone who had a very eclectic variety of music, because not only did they want current music … and some classic rock … but Middle Eastern music was necessary, since half the guests were Middle Eastern. Fortunately, we live in an area where this isn’t uncommon. The dance floor was a lot of fun!
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I had a talk with the DJ before music started and told him that his tip had an inverse relationship with the decibels. He kept it tolerable…
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We warned the waitstaff head of time about a particularly demanding guest, and I told the manager that she would inevitably write some sort of complaint and that should not reflect on the staff in any way. They actually assigned her a single waiter, which was wonderful.
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I have visions of them drawing straws back in the kitchen…
When I interned at a pharmacy as a student there was this lady who walked in and everyone literally dove behind the counter (including my boss) leaving me standing there dumbfounded to wait on her. I literally had to step over bodies stifling laughter to wait on her. It was hard not to look down and give them all away. That was the good old days when every time someone complained undeservedly the price would get jacked up.
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I was very happy with my D’s wedding. However, one thing I would change is that I would NOT pay for the photographer to do a bound album – I would pay less and get the pictures digitally and make my own album on one of the services like Shutterfly or MPIX.
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A family friend’s daughter had a firepit with marshmallows and s’more fixings. It was a cute idea, but it was around the corner from the main reception and no one really paid any attention to it. Cute idea, but I think they needed to do a better of job of reminding people it was there.
Wedding favors can be fun, but mostly they just get left on the table. My D’s friend had cute wine stoppers as her wedding favors. D still uses the one she got, but a lot of people still left them on the table. I think sometimes it can be easy to forget to take the favors with them.
My nephew and his wife had special beer glasses made as favors. While those were nice, they were kind of heavy and hard to transport for those who are flying in and out for the wedding.
D also attended a wedding, where they had decorated cookies as the favors. She said a lot of people took those. They’re easy to transport and you can pass them on to kids, etc.
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Edible favors are easy and tend to be rated on site or taken to eat. We gave a pair of candies as our favorite. I believe they were consumed or taken and if not, they were very nominal cost. I’ve seen and received sone fancier favors but honestly that’s not needed and just add to the expense of the couple & families.
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My daughter got married this past October. The wedding was delayed a year due to Covid and in that time she was in or invited to 5 other weddings. Although she hated having to postpone hers a year, she realized after going to some of these other weddings that she really wasn’t as organized as she wanted to be - and she ended up being grateful for the extra year!
One of the absolute best things we did as parents was to agree on a dollar number to give my daughter for her wedding, and then we gave her one check for the whole amount. She could decide how to divide it up, but we were not involved in any of the spending of that money. If she went over (and she did) that money came from her and my son-in-law. We had other friends who micromanaged their daughters’ spending of the wedding budget (writing every check and questioning every expense) and it led to a lot of fights along the way. As the mom, of course I knew how much she spent on things because I helped her negotiate, but could keep my husband in the dark (men just don’t know how much weddings cost these days )
My one, not really regret per se, but something I backed down on was my husband’s requirement that we invite certain family members who we knew wouldn’t come (mostly because of their age and Covid concerns) - it was more an issue of sending an obligatory invitation. Well, it counted against our number of invitees, and invitations & stamps cost money! In the end it wasn’t worth a family fight but if it were up to me: only invite people who you know will come!
Another waste of money IMO (maybe because I agreed to do them) was the welcome bags. This was destination wedding for everyone, and my daughter wanted welcome bags. While the gesture is nice - they were basically just snacks & waters (and some hangover cures) - not a make-or-break for a fun wedding.
Also the cake - don’t spend tons of money on it! We got ours from Publix for $200 (they even do cake tastings!) My daughter had been to enough weddings and saw that hardly anyone eats the cake anyway - why spend $800++ on it??? And Publix makes awesome cakes! And they delivered it!
We gave small pen-shaped spray hand sanitizer with the kid’s initials embossed on it as favors – a sign of the times LOL! Not a lot of money. I think people either used them there (before the reception dinner) or took them!
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I loved this idea and suggested it to my daughter, and she said they are already planning it!
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