Hi brides,
Just wanted to let you all know that I cannot recommend the Encore Quartet of Mesa. Incredibly unprofessional. They were hired to play essentially 4 songs at my 20 minute wedding ceremony (and some pre-ceremony selections I did not choose). The song that they were supposed to play just for my husband and his parents as they walked down the aisle? Yeah, they played it for the entire bridal party too. We had 14 people in our bridal party! And the song was very special to my husband and his parents- it was Edelweiss. What we wanted for the bridal party was the more fun, bridal party-appropriate, "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Hearing Edelweiss for 10 minutes was NOT how we wanted to start off our wedding ceremony.
When I e-mailed the quartet, and mentioned my concern (in a very polite way, by the way), I was told to "call in to discuss." Well, I was leaving for my honeymoon that day. There was not even so much as an "I'm sorry we forgot to play 1 of your songs." I also waited another 3 weeks or so (my wedding was 12-3-11) to see if they would make it right- just an apology was all that would have been necessary to avoid my posting about my negative experience on all the wedding sites. But nope, no word from them.
When you hire people to play 4 songs, and they only play 3, that is a HUGE problem in my book. And the way it was handled (NOT handled) after the fact means that I cannot recommend them and I actually think you should book any of the other wonderful Valley-area quartets instead.
I will say that the music I did hear played did sound great! So if you're not that concerned about the specific music played, and are willing to take your chances that a song may not make it on your big day, then maybe this group is the group for you. But to me, the missing song combined with the completely unprofessional reaction to the missing song outweighs the fact that they played some beautiful music.
So just a recap: hired to play 4 songs- only played 3- did NOT apologize- and we tipped the customary $20 a musician. Absolutely unprofessional. BEWARE!