music to my wallet

I know!  I've been MIA for the last two months but not without good reason!

I've been pretty busy with work, and between traveling and not having time to bounce ideas off my work BFF Megan (I like the term workwife but others seem to disagree), I just haven't really had a chance to organize my thoughts.  And now that I'm back home with Momzilla, I don't have much room or time to do anything other than wedding planning!

Ok, enough with the excuses.  The point of this entry was to bring up a topic that I've kinda dodged until now but with less than 5 months until the wedding (gasp!!), I think it's time to face the music.  Pun intended.

I'm a music person.  Always have been.  I even work in a music related industry.  And so when it was time to plan a wedding, I knew I wanted to have some live music in addition to the recorded tunes spun by my DJ.

The big question for me is where are the live musicians most appreciated?  And where are my dollars best spent?

My church apparently has some sort of "contract" with a fanfare company where, for a few hundred dollars, we could have a trumpeter announce my arrival outside the church, play during the ceremony, and announce our departure as husband and wife afterwards.  When I heard the trumpet play the wedding march in church during our workshop, I was sold.

But now I'm contemplating whether or not I'll need to hire another set of live classical musicians to play during the cocktail hour.  I attended another winter wedding not too long ago where a string quartet played classical music during  cocktail hour and I remember it feeling really warm and cozy.   Momzilla is a huge fan of this idea and the romantic, sentimental side of me is as well.

I would love to do both but my wedding budget isn't so sure.  The amount of money I have allotted for live music does not cover both the ceremony and the cocktail hour.  And while I'm more inclined to have the trumpeter at the church (slightly cheaper, more powerful, more noticeable, and heard by me, the bride!), I still haven't completely thrown out the idea of just doing the cocktail hour (more romantic, more guests will hear it, cozier).

So my question to everyone is:

If you had to choose between live musicians at the ceremony or live musicians at the cocktail hour, which ones do you think is more remembered by the guests? 

Or do you think I should just suck it up and get live musicians for both the ceremony AND the cocktail hour?