Vendor review--Matt Reed Band : C-
My husband and I hired the Matt Reed Band, a subsidiary of Ken Arlen Music Consultants, for our wedding.
I should qualify this review by saying that, in hindsight, I should have looked at their music list more carefully before commiting to hire them. I also should have taken their poor communication and lack of responsiveness as a warning sign prior to the wedding. That said, I was just not very happy with them at all. My husband thought they were "OK".
First off, I was surprised to see that they showed up with a different female lead singer than they had advertised in their promotional materials and website. We hired them partially based on the performances we had seen posted online, and thus expected the singers to be the ones that they show on their videos. The singer they brought was totally different than the one we expected--her singing style was completely different. I really think it's their responsibility to inform clients of such a significant change to what was originally contracted for.
Another huge problem was that they repeatedly played songs off our "do not play" list, and failed to play the songs that we indicated were favorites. I took their song list, and edited it to remove all of our "do not play" songs, and highlighted, in bright yellow, our favorites on the list. I made it clear that the list was of songs that we liked and wanted to hear. If the bandleader didn't understand, he really should have contacted me to clarify. Instead they just ignored our requests and played whatever they wanted.
Because my husband and I were busy greeting guests most of the night (we had a really big wedding), I didn't realize just how bad it was until we watched the video afterwards.
Overall, they were really corny and cheezy. They were not what I had expected, and not what they had advertised.
I gave them a "C" because some aspects were acceptable--they showed up on time and played for the full amount of time we paid for. The were musically proficient--it's not like they couldn't play their instruments or sang off-key. I had them play some recorded music for the ceremony that we provided, and for the most part they got it right.
If I could go back and do it again, I would not have hired them for my wedding.
