Geraldine in a Bottle: 8 steps to kickstart your wedding band

Making your place in the wedding industry can be quite hard, but when you follow the following 8 steps, you will increase your chances of getting gigs for your wedding band.

Have a website: This is absolutely mandatory. Clients think that when you don't have a website you don't exist, or that you're not serious enough. Make one.
Put a video reel on your homepage: Make sure to film the first few wedding gigs you do, then add up 30 seconds of different songs you played back to back. This is the most important aspect of your website, that will help couples decide if you're right for their wedding or not.
List your songs rep: This is a way for people to see what style you specialize in. Some bands do more classic rock, some more contemporary songs, and some do a mix of everything. Make sure you know which category you fit in, and make that obvious on your repertoire list.
Have a FAQ page: answer people's questions before they even ask them. Reassure them that you will Emcee at the wedding, that you have replacement musicians in case of emergency, tell them what sorts of equipment you use, what your band will wear at the wedding, how you handle volume, if you will bring party lights or not, etc.
Contact page: many bands and other wedding vendors have an inquiry form for couples to fill out. Couples end up having to fill in too many of such forms, and they will be most grateful when you simply put an email address that allows them to copy and paste the same introduction email to different vendors.
Introduce band members: A simple way to connect with your potential clients is to put headshots and bios of your band members. Some bands also put the bios of regular subs.
Have a facebook page and a twitter account: A lot of bands have been around a long time and aren't on facebook and twitter, which means that you will have more chances to be found on there and hired by the population using those sites than the older bands.

Provide value to your followers by adding tips on weddings, to show that you know what you're talking about: you may talk about song options for first dances, link to articles about parents dances, suggest ceremony musicians, etc.
Encourage reviews: The cheapest and best form of advertisement is word of mouth, and these days word of mouth happens as online reviews.

To encourage your clients to post reviews of you, offer them incentives to do so: a free cd, $50 off their final bill, etc. Help them suggest you to their friends by offering a 5% discount to whomever they refer you to.