I have a friend who is a professional freelance cello player in the San Francisco area. In fact her trio (aka duo, quartet, and quintet) is going to be listed in the Northern California edition of The Knot magazine! How exciting for her! Basically she’s good and she knows what she’s doing with weddings.
She has offered twice now to play music for my ceremony as a gift. She is already invited as a guest with her boyfriend. I was just visiting her in CA this past weekend and we discussed it more. She’s done a TON of weddings as a solo cellist or in a small group (she contracts out the other musicians).
Would you take her up on it? I wasn’t doing a ton of research on this yet, but a well known local wedding musician (this is Jackson Hole – pricy everything) can charge up to $300/hour. She said some pre-ceremony music, then a prelude, then recessional music for after, and even suggested I pick from some famous Bach cello suites. My wedding is outdoors (we discussed shade, weather), small and casual.
She would use an instrument from a local music store here rather than fly in with her cello – that would require an extra plane ticket for just the instrument! She made it sound like it was not a big deal at all.
What would be a good compensation for this generous gift? Pay for one hotel night? Leave it at it being her gift to us?
Here are the Bach cello solos:
http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Cello-Suites-Nos-1-6/dp/B000002RUY
(only the MAJOR movements, not minor)