OK, here goes.
For all of you professional performers out there who get asked to play in your hometown...
Yikes. It's such a problem and a dilemma.

I have people come up to me all the time, asking if I'll perform in their wedding. It's hard to gauge whether your professional fee will be gouging for you or for them.

Many times - 9 out of 10, the couples are very nice and you really want to help them...

by the way, this is strictly for anyone who may be up to a good acquaintance,
but not friend. for example, you know them, and there's real potential, but you
don't even know what color their bathroom is.

but their hierarchical idea of the music at their weddings is below say, decorations at the table. Understandable, really, due to the scads of people who are relatives asked to perform. Relatives whom everyone in the family insists play some type of instrument, or who majored in music. Before going on to major in (bah-boom!) NOT music.

Yet there they are, at the however many hundreds of thousands of weddings cutting away at the Bach or Pachabell, Vibratoing through Ave Maria and The Lord's Prayer, just making it worse for us who can perform to a certain aesthetic.

I am all for people singing and playing. Really I am. And these self same people do not have this idea held as one of malice they just aren't informed. Truthfully though, when it comes to demeaning my living, I really have a shrinking tolerance for the low ball attitude, intended or not.
I have no problem giving my full price to those people and others whom I get by referral or through being a fan.

Let me just add, I've started putting in a caveat when I quote my price. If your ceremony by any chance goes wrong, it wont be by me. People talk about the weddings I sing for decades. I really do enjoy giving that WOW factor. I don't say that smugly, its through the experience of having countless people coming up to me about how I sang in so and so's wedding and how great it was, as well as some bride or groom coming up and still after (too many...sheesh has it been THAT Long??) years, they still have people coming up to THEM, saying theirs was the best wedding they'd ever seen.

And that was when I was cheap.

So now that I am not cheap, although if you compare some other high profile performers, I'd be on the less expensive side, I now have these problems of the one couple in ten ( you can lump wedding couples and party throwers together ) who just do not have the cash, sometimes to my surprise. AND I like them, and there's no way they would have the dough and no way I would charge them my full fee.
And to make matters worse, there are those who can't even make my lowest fee.

Sigh.

There's always trade, but I think it was Vonnegut who hated the idea of trade because you trade something you don't want to do for something you really don't want.

I like weddings, for the hope it brings to a couple and a community. I like attending weddings my friends are in, as a participant or as a guest. But really, I am just a typical guy who would rather not go. And yes, sometimes I'd rather sit on my duffer than sing in a wedding.

Personally, I don't want to be held responsible for witnessing and having to be responsible in some way for keeping the couple together years down the line. You know that thing where the reverend asks all the people at the wedding if you and me will help these two fulfil their vows in the many years to come?
Yeah, I take that seriously.

I mean, I'm not going to go home with them and make sure they conceive and I'm not going to do anything out of the norm, or anything, but I take that vow because I care. I want things to work and if I can help I will.

It's stupid I know, but for a while, I didn't really realize what the preacher was asking. I was just biding my time until I sang again.

So that's part of it. and then again, sometimes I'd rather sit on my duffer...especially for how much dough I'd be making. Remember the 9 in 10 people. Sometimes they actually pay the fee.
And I'm right there for them...both professionally and personally

.
But again, there's the couple just starting out, or out of sorts, or whatever.
...pause 10 seconds...

One loophole I have found is Military Weddings!! That's free!
*unless it's out of town and they need other instruments etc. *
Yep, it's just one of those things. I DO give a banana this country and those who are putting their lives in harm's way. If you read this and are a cop or a fire fighter, I'd consider that too.
It's a new policy and limited to my schedule, but I think it's important.

But here we are again at the couple. ugh. Such nice people. Maybe I could do a trade.

Laters