Wedding Prices

Some weddings place different demands on the musicians. The following prices are not a quote but a general ballpark figure for local Houston weddings under one hour. Weddings which require travel (75 miles or more), longer durations (longer than one hour) or special provisions require us to charge more than this basic rate.


Solo Trumpet:	$378
Any Duet:	$562
Any Trio:	$745
Any Quartet:	$928
Any Quintet:	$1,112

Why Do We List Our Prices?

They say you should never reveal the price until the very end - right before you "close the sale". We don't work that way. We are more concerned with making things easier for you. The standard sales technique is to bombard you with all the good stuff in hopes that it will soften the blow when you hear the price. We don't have time for those games. Please don't misunderstand. We do have time for YOU. We just don't have time to play sales games with everyone who visits this site. We would much rather spend that time working with YOU and other brides who know that we are within their budget. This makes life easier for everyone involved.By making our rates available online this way, we have successfully maximized the efficiency of our business. Over 90% of the time we spend with the brides is wedding planning time, not sales time. There is also the added benefit that the relationship we have with the bride and groom is less hostile. Those who hire us specifically come to us because they want what we have to offer. Perhaps, if we were less successful we would need to invest more effort into the sales side of the business. As you can see by visiting other areas of this site, Eddie Lewis is not only an accomplished and highly regarded music educator, but also an "in demand" performer, contractor and band leader. Weddings are our highest priority and greatest honor, not our "industry". So we break from the industry's sales conventions by offering you our prices up front. This is our way of saying that we care about you as an individual and would rather spend our time working with you on wedding details.

Are These Rates Too High?

In a 2007 Houston Weddings magazine there was an article about choosing music for your wedding. The opinion of the article's author was that anything over $125 per musician is too much for music for your ceremony. No allowances were made for the experience, quality and professionalism of the musicians. There was no mention of the fact that $125 is the going rate for college students and that, indeed, most experienced professional players charge more than $125.

Note: $125 was the rate Mr. Lewis was charging in the late 1980s as a college student himself.

The article was inconsistent with the rest of the magazine which clearly explains how differences in quality go hand in hand with differences in price. Is there a difference between a $50 wedding cake and a $800 cake? Is there a difference between a $100 Knights of Columbus hall and a $6,000 ball room at the Hilton of the Americas? Is there a difference between a $100 wedding gown and a $2,000 gown? Of course there's a difference! In fact, this very same article did not hold reception bands to this same $125 per musician standard. The author quoted a price range from $2,000 to $10,000 for bands for wedding receptions. Why should you settle for less for the music in your ceremony? As with everything else in your wedding, it is up to you to decide on a budget and to decide what aspects of your wedding are a priority to you. If music is a priority, why would you limit yourself to $125 musicians? Maybe you might "get lucky" cutting a deal with a cheaper player, but when you're working with experienced pros, you don't have to take that chance.