arkitrave :: log

This wedding story deserves more than a comment, so I’m going all out with a new post here. There are two aspects to the story - the worst wedding song ever, and the worst mother of the bride ever.

Worst Mother of the Bride Ever

August 1999. My friend Jeremy gets hired through a friend to play for a wedding ceremony in Vashon Island, Washington. He has a schedule conflict come up the week of the wedding. Services included a rehearsal, a wedding ceremony, and the transcription of the bridal march off of a tape (see Worst Weddding Song Ever).

He asks if I can play the wedding in his place, and says he will call the mother of the bride (MOTB) to let her know I will be coming to the rehearsal.

Vashon Island is a ferry ride from Tacoma. For a 6:00 rehearsal, leaving my house at 3:00 is required, because of the possibility of not making the ferry and being stuck (they run only every hour).

I show up at the rehearsal 30 minutes early. The MOTB is unaware that I was taking Jeremy’s place, and lets me know of her disappointment that Jeremy is not there. I express my apologies that she wasn’t informed; I had assumed she would know, and let her know I had talked to Jeremy extensively and prepared the music. I play for the rehearsal, discuss prelude music with the bride, and ask the bride who would be paying me. The bride refers me to the MOTB, who says “I agreed to pay Jeremy $x. I will pay you tomorrow at the wedding.” I agreed, even though I usually take payment at the rehearsal. It is just easier for everyone. But she says “How do I know you’ll even show up tomorrow?” Since she seems pretty volitile, I don’t press the issue, and agree to payment after the wedding.

I play the wedding the next day. I throw my whole heart into playing the Worst Wedding Song Ever. It goes well, several people including members of the wedding party pay me compliments afterwards, and I am eventually handed an envelope. Again, note the leaving at 3:00, returning home around 9:00. Twelve hours of time for an amount that I never would have agreed to if my friend hadn’t already negotiated it. Plus the time transcribing the bridal song off the tape. $x was too low.

After opening the envelope back in Tacoma, I find that the amount enclosed, along with a really cheesy discount-rack card, is $x - $y, instead of $x. An amount of approximately 1/3 of the agreed-upon sum. I telephone the MOTB, who, not very nicely, informs me that she had no agreement with me, and that I was lucky to receive the $x - $y amount. She knows a church organist somewhere who would have played the wedding for that amount (don’t we all…), and feels it was fair. Plus, I received ferry tickets in the amount of $z, so I got off good, she reasoned. She tells me I am harassing her.

I don’t buy the logic, and feel that the $2.50 per hour of my time I had earned is pretty pathetic (OK, i’ll give you a hard number — she paid me $40). A string of not-very-nice letters ensues, I threaten legal action after a couple invoices, small-claims court follows, and I eventually get my money. (Oh, yeah…she threatens to report me to the musician’s union too to get me blacklisted or something…particularly funny considering the union always sides with the musicians, and I wasn’t even a part of the union…)

When she tried to defend herself in small claims court, she argued that I had ruined her daughter’s wedding day as she had given her daughter the gift of my friend’s playing at her wedding and got me instead, that she had no agreement with me whatsoever so she owed me nothing, that it was incredibly rude to ask the bride for money at a wedding rehearsal, and that if she went to hear Barry Manilow (!) and some other band filled in, she would be entitled to a refund, etc. You don’t need a degree in music to know that wedding playing is not at the level of a big-ticket music concert (though I don’t know about Barry Manilow…). We provided equivalent services, we were both students at the time, and I played well. The judge didn’t feel she had a right to determine what my fee should be either.

It was a fascinating experience for me; I learned a lot about the legal process and never worked again without a contract. It cost her lots of time and paying my court fees in addition to the money she should have paid me in the first place.

The Worst Wedding Song Ever

Here’s what you’ve been waiting for. What was the mystery piece I had to transcribe off a tape for this musically discerning bride?

None other than Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood.”

I don’t know what kind of personal significance it had for her, but best I can tell it is a song about the devestation of a flood on a small town.

The jaded underworld was riding high / Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky…When the flood comes / you have no home, you have no walls…Lord, here comes the flood / We will say goodbye to flesh and blood…

It’s not a bad song, really, but after five years of occasional pondering, I still have no idea why anyone would want to walk down the aisle to it. It’s pretty melencholy.

So that’s it. The best wedding story ever. It has a nasty rich mother of the bride, strange music, an island, a ferry, a ripoff, a contractual lawsuit, and a poor musician trying to defend the rights of musicians everywhere to get paid. If anyone wants the movie rights, um, give me a call.