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Last week, my quartet got a gig playing a wedding at the swanky estate of one of the richest families in the area.
People, you should have seen this place! I don't know how large the grounds were, but it looked to be the size of most entire subdivisions. Park-like grounds, immaculately maintained by full-time professional groundskeepers, private lake, beautiful mansion straight out of a movie set, woods, trails, guest cottages, and so on. In short, these were incredibly wealthy people we're talking about.
And they were throwing an incredibly expensive wedding, too. Immense reception tent for at least a couple of hundred guests, live big band for dancing later, centerpieces, uber-gourmet catering, two full bars...oh, you just had to be there! I don't want to even guess how much this was costing them.
The point being, the amount of money our quartet was getting paid was just a tiny, tiny drop in a big, big bucket. This becomes significant later.
Anyway, just because a wedding is mega-expensive is no guarantee that things won't go wrong. And pretty much everything did.
The plan had been for the wedding to take place in a specially-built pavilion on the shore of the private lake, timed and placed perfectly so that the rays of the setting sun would shine on the bride and groom as they said their vows. It would have been beautiful, if the weather had cooperated.
That was the first problem. The weather reports were full of warnings about approaching rain, so they changed the plan. The wedding would be moved inside the reception tent. This would have worked, except that nobody seems to have planned for this possibility. The tent had been decorated (beautifully!) with subdued, romantic mood lighting for the reception, which created a problem for us. There was no good lighting for us, which obviously made it difficult to see our music. There was still enough light coming from outside for us to kind of see, but then another problem arose.
The bride was being dressed and made up off-site, and the plan was for her to arrive in a limo just in time for the wedding. But she was delayed. I never found out just what the problem was, but she didn't arrive until over half an hour after the wedding was supposed to be over. We agreed to stay later, for a modest extra fee of course. But the lighting issue was getting worse, since the sun was setting by then.
Then there was another problem. It was a hot evening, and very humid (approaching rain, remember?). This has a bad effect on string instruments. It becomes impossible to keep them in tune for long, plus the humidity causes the hair in our bows to lose tension, making the tone suffer.
Finally the bride arrived, and the wedding got under way. By the time the service was over, it was very dark where we were, plus we hadn't been able to tune up before playing the recessional. Somehow we managed to not sound like crap, but just to be able to see our music, we had to lean in close to the music stand, which is awkward.
And right at that time, the wedding photographer decided it was time to take our picture. Because it was so dark, he was using a powerful flash. Do I need to describe what happened? There we are, trying to play in tune and with some kind of good tone, squinting in the darkness to see what it is we're supposed to be playing, then suddenly a brilliant flash bursts right in our eyes! Then another one, and another! So we were basically playing the recessional completely blind!
Where's the SC in this, you're all wondering? Here it comes...
As it was over and we were packing up, our leader walked over to collect our pay (we were getting paid extra for staying an hour late, remember). He came back looking pretty upset, and reported that the man he spoke to (I assume it was the father of the bride) made some snotty comment like, "Everyone just keeps coming around with their hands out."
So, after all that, we get to end the gig by being treated as though we were one step above common panhandlers!
So, that was my weekend. How was yours?
People, you should have seen this place! I don't know how large the grounds were, but it looked to be the size of most entire subdivisions. Park-like grounds, immaculately maintained by full-time professional groundskeepers, private lake, beautiful mansion straight out of a movie set, woods, trails, guest cottages, and so on. In short, these were incredibly wealthy people we're talking about.
And they were throwing an incredibly expensive wedding, too. Immense reception tent for at least a couple of hundred guests, live big band for dancing later, centerpieces, uber-gourmet catering, two full bars...oh, you just had to be there! I don't want to even guess how much this was costing them.
The point being, the amount of money our quartet was getting paid was just a tiny, tiny drop in a big, big bucket. This becomes significant later.
Anyway, just because a wedding is mega-expensive is no guarantee that things won't go wrong. And pretty much everything did.
The plan had been for the wedding to take place in a specially-built pavilion on the shore of the private lake, timed and placed perfectly so that the rays of the setting sun would shine on the bride and groom as they said their vows. It would have been beautiful, if the weather had cooperated.
That was the first problem. The weather reports were full of warnings about approaching rain, so they changed the plan. The wedding would be moved inside the reception tent. This would have worked, except that nobody seems to have planned for this possibility. The tent had been decorated (beautifully!) with subdued, romantic mood lighting for the reception, which created a problem for us. There was no good lighting for us, which obviously made it difficult to see our music. There was still enough light coming from outside for us to kind of see, but then another problem arose.
The bride was being dressed and made up off-site, and the plan was for her to arrive in a limo just in time for the wedding. But she was delayed. I never found out just what the problem was, but she didn't arrive until over half an hour after the wedding was supposed to be over. We agreed to stay later, for a modest extra fee of course. But the lighting issue was getting worse, since the sun was setting by then.
Then there was another problem. It was a hot evening, and very humid (approaching rain, remember?). This has a bad effect on string instruments. It becomes impossible to keep them in tune for long, plus the humidity causes the hair in our bows to lose tension, making the tone suffer.
Finally the bride arrived, and the wedding got under way. By the time the service was over, it was very dark where we were, plus we hadn't been able to tune up before playing the recessional. Somehow we managed to not sound like crap, but just to be able to see our music, we had to lean in close to the music stand, which is awkward.
And right at that time, the wedding photographer decided it was time to take our picture. Because it was so dark, he was using a powerful flash. Do I need to describe what happened? There we are, trying to play in tune and with some kind of good tone, squinting in the darkness to see what it is we're supposed to be playing, then suddenly a brilliant flash bursts right in our eyes! Then another one, and another! So we were basically playing the recessional completely blind!
Where's the SC in this, you're all wondering? Here it comes...
As it was over and we were packing up, our leader walked over to collect our pay (we were getting paid extra for staying an hour late, remember). He came back looking pretty upset, and reported that the man he spoke to (I assume it was the father of the bride) made some snotty comment like, "Everyone just keeps coming around with their hands out."
So, after all that, we get to end the gig by being treated as though we were one step above common panhandlers!
So, that was my weekend. How was yours?
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