Two Weddings in as Many Days

So, as some of you know, I’m a musician. I play viola (keep your viola jokes to yourself—I guarantee I’ve heard them all and have the psychic scars to prove it). Anyway, because a friend and fellow-violist is about to give birth, I’m filling in for her over the summer with a string quartet. The quartet gets hired routinely to play weddings, engagement parties, birthday parties, and other assorted soirees (including a date for an episode of the bachelor a couple seasons ago—I didn’t get to play that one). So in the last 48 hours, I’ve been to two weddings of complete strangers—one Sunday evening and one Monday evening. I’ve not been to weddings on Sunday or Monday before (though I did go to a Friday night one once). It’s pretty interesting to attend weddings when you don’t know the people involved because you get an entirely different perspective on the choices that people make with regards not only to the music, but all the other little details that go into the occasion, from the dresses to the flowers, to the setting to even the time of day—both of these were 5:30 ceremonies.

Typically, what happens is that we’ll show up around 4:40 for a 5:00 booking, and we’ll set up and play while the guests arrive, then we’ll play for the processional and recessional, and finally, we’ll play for an hour or so while the guests are served cocktails and appetizers. Both of these weddings were outside—one in the cool sunshine of Pacific Palisades (near to the beach, but not oceanfront), the other at a beautiful, but sweltering garden near Pasadena (inland, so typically 10-20 degrees warmer than the beach).

I like playing weddings because it’s pretty easy to make people happy. The audiences tend to be very appreciative (though pre-ceremony jitters can be contagious), and the music is usually pretty easy—deceptively easy sometimes . . . but familiar songs that guests recognize and like: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Pachebel’s Canon, Handel’s Water Music, Brandenburg Concertos (I guarantee you would recognize these if you heard them unless you’ve been living under a rock with no audio for the last few centuries!).

Yesterday’s ceremony was especially nice for the quartet because the family tipped each of us—typically, we do get paid for the gig, somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 for a two hour booking (divided 4 ways), which in case you aren’t aware, is a pretty good deal, but this was the first time that I ever got a tip! Woo Hoo! And I’m being completely serious—it was great to be appreciated. Back in college, people wanted to hire a quartet for $100 (for four people!)—they would expect us to attend the rehearsal dinner and the ceremony and play at both, as well as before and after. Talk about rip-off! The generous families would throw in dinner at the reception. Don’t get me wrong—I’m certainly not above free food, but $25 for what amounted to 4 hours of work—that’s not even minimum wage! And unlike minimum wage jobs, even then, not just anyone can pick up a stringed instrument and play . . . (well, they could, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be pretty!)

The downside of weddings is that it gets me thinking about things I don’t want to be thinking about like whether or not I will ever get married. I always kinda thought that I would, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards anytime soon, and I’m not getting any younger, so maybe not. . . But I don’t like to think about such things because I really have little control over it. God knows I couldn’t have married my last boyfriend, though I certainly thought it might happen at the time—in retrospect, that was a “leave me at the altar” scenario waiting to happen if ever there was one. Thankfully, I’ve come to my senses and gotten clear of that, and thankfully too, I’ve never been at a wedding that didn’t actually come off . . . that would be awful.