Easy question, difficult answer.
In PA, you get what you pay for. So cutting corners on price is not a good idea. My advice usually is to rent til you can buy pro quality. Include the gear rental (not just your PA but all your other stuff too!) in the gig price. Strike a deal with a rental company so you get some discount because you are essentially “reselling” their service. I get between 15-25% on my rental stuff from the companies I work with. Tell them you will be back several times a year and they will be happy to do business with you.
PA size and sub yes/no depends a lot on party and venue size. There are some very nice small satellite with single subs sets available (check the blog for the LD systems and HK Audio versions). Compact, easy to transport and pretty punchy and loud for smaller sized parties.
I have a Mackie HD setup with two 12″ HD1221s and a HD1801 sub. One sub is plenty for my purpose and although I CAN play with just the 12″s, the umph the sub gives makes for a better experience and does better justice to dance music. My tip: don’t overdo it with the lows. My sub is generally 3-6 dB lower to balance things out nicely.
Again, renting is a good option. It also gives you the option of renting a few different setups/brands/models to determine what you like best before committing a decent chunk of money to your PA purchase.
Hope that helps some.
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