Wedding cost in Spain: what the budget is made of

Nobody can give one honest figure for a wedding cost in Spain, because an intimate dinner for twenty guests and a banquet for two hundred differ by a multiple. The structure of the budget, though, is always the same, and once you see it you can tell where the money really goes and where there is room to manoeuvre. This guide goes through it line by line, with no invented numbers.

Wedding cost in Spain: what the budget is made of

• The venue, usually the biggest item: a finca, hotel, restaurant or private villa;
• Catering, often priced per guest and bundled with the venue;
• Music and equipment: the musicians and sound and lighting, plus a stage or a screen where required;
• Photo and video;
• Decor and flowers;
• Dress, suit, hair and make-up;
• Guest logistics, meaning transfers and hotels;
• Paperwork, if the registration is official;
• A reserve of roughly a tenth of the budget for the unplanned.

The reserve is not there because somebody counted badly. A live celebration always produces something unplanned, from an extra transfer to a generator needed at the last minute.

What drives the price of music and equipment

This is our area, so here is the detail. These are the factors that move a quote.

• Who plays: one soloist, a duo, a trio, or a larger band such as Royal Band. This is the biggest variable of all;
• Duration: an hour for the ceremony or a full evening with dancing;
• How much equipment: speakers alone, or speakers with lights, plus a stage or a screen if the venue needs them;
• The venue itself: a hall indoors is cheaper to equip than an open garden, where every light has to be brought and rigged;
• The guest count, because it determines how powerful the system must be;
• The city: a trip to Torrevieja and a trip to Barcelona differ fundamentally;
• Electricity: if the venue is short of it, a generator is added.

Where saving makes sense

• The month: September and October are cheaper than July, and the coastal weather is no worse;
• The day of the week: a Friday or a Sunday costs less than a Saturday;
• Splitting the musicians by part of the evening: a soloist for the ceremony and dinner, the full band only for the dancing, so the whole band is not on the clock while the guests are still eating;
• The guest list, the most effective lever, since every guest brings catering, a seat and decor with them;
• A venue outside town, often cheaper than a central location and more relaxed about volume;
• Decor: good lighting does more for the atmosphere than half the flowers.

Where saving turns into overpaying

• Sound without a technician: the kit arrives and nobody tunes it, the most common reason for a ruined evening;
• A kit chosen by eye: there is not enough power, the back tables cannot hear and guests drift away early;
• No lighting on an open site: once the sun sets the party vanishes into the dark, for the guests and for the photographer who is already on your bill;
• Splitting music and equipment between contractors, because most failures happen at the joins;
• No reserve, so every small thing becomes stress;
• Music outside the budget: it is priced after the venue deposit, and the total jumps.

How to build the budget in the right order

1. Fix the guest count, because almost everything else follows from it;
2. Choose the month and the weekday, the second biggest factor;
3. Find a venue and ask about power, volume limits and set-up time straight away;
4. Price the music and equipment before paying the venue deposit, not after;
5. Add the reserve;
6. Ask us whether the music is free on your date before you pay the venue deposit.

The most common sequence of mistakes looks different: the venue is booked first, then comes the discovery of a volume limit or missing power, and the music and equipment are only priced once the deposit is paid. The event planning checklist gives the safer order by date.

Why we do not publish a price list

Any figure on the website would be untrue for most cases. A dinner for 20 guests in an Alicante restaurant with a violinist and a wedding for 150 guests on a finca near Valencia with a full band, a stage and a screen are different orders of magnitude. We price a specific scenario and reply the same day. To do that we ask for four things: the date, where it is, how many guests and what the evening will look like.

Travel in a wedding budget

Part of any budget is the road from Alicante for the musicians and equipment. Close to base, Elche, Benidorm, Torrevieja and Calpe add almost nothing to a quote. Murcia, Denia, Jávea, Cartagena and Valencia fall in the middle zone, an ordinary working trip. Madrid, Málaga, Marbella and Barcelona are the farthest, and the crew stays overnight there. Details for each place are on the cities page, and we also work outside that list, in the south of France as well.

Putting music and equipment under one budget line

Most couples budget the musicians, the hire of equipment and the installation as three separate deals with three different people. We suggest one: everything from one team, which is our main difference.

• One party answers for the result, so a sound complaint has a single address and no finger-pointing;
• The musicians already know the kit and do not lose their first set to an unfamiliar desk;
• The sound engineer knows the programme and where a vocal should be lifted or pulled back;
• One arrival and one installation, instead of three crews at the venue at different times;
• One contact for you, with fewer arrangements to make.

What to read next

The formats of live music are covered in our live wedding music guide. For the equipment itself, read what sound, lighting and stage hire includes; and a full turnkey example is the wedding near Girona. For the service itself, see our wedding band page.

How to get a quote for your wedding budget

Start with a message giving the date, city, venue, format and rough guest count. The calculation comes back the same day. We then check the venue details ourselves, covering power, volume, set-up duration and access, and ring the venue if it helps. After the date is fixed, the programme, playlist and evening timing are agreed a few weeks out, and on the wedding day everything is built and tested before the first guest.

Frequently asked questions