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Wedding Etiquette Forum
comexwhatxmay
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How to ask someone to play at our wedding?
The mom of one of my two maids of honor (I have two best friends, couldn't choose one) is a fantastic piano player. My fiance and I are both very close to her. That being said, we want her to be the pianist for our wedding. I'd like it to just be as a wedding gift...but I'm not sure how to say that/how to ask her. Do I even mention that it would be in place of their gift (I feel like that sounds tacky...is it?) or do I just ask her to play or what? I'm not sure how to go about this. Any advice would be appreciated 
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Re: How to ask someone to play at our wedding?
You can't ask her to give her talent as a gift, that would be rude. Do you know about how much she would charge? Or another pianist? If you really want HER then ask if she is willing and offer to pay her going rate. Only if she offers to do it for free, it would be up to you to accept or not. There is no nice way to ask for free services.
If you want this lady to play at your wedding, you simply ask her how much she charges for her wedding services, and the YOU PAY HER!!!
You have no idea how insulting your idea is to musicians, who spend years and years learning their art, and then are expected to entertain at parties or to play in church for nothing. I spent more time learning my art than most doctors do, learning their profession. (Piano lessons at age 3 - don't do that to your child!)
It is completely rude for you to suggest that she give you her services instead of a material gift. You have no business even mentioning gifts. If she decides to give you her services as a gift, that must come from her, not you. Coming from you it is greedy, tacky, careless.
PS. Average wedding charge is $300.
And if you ask her, you should pay her and have a written contract designating what she will sing, when, and how much compensation she'll receive for it.
And she may say no. Respect that.
One of our officiants is my pastor from back home - he's like a grandfather. He gettin' paid. It might end up in our card box, but the money will be in his hands first.
With regards to the latter - we had a friend who offered to set up his speaker equipment and make sure our music got played for us at our reception (we were making our own playlist and asked him what sort of speakers we should rent because he is knowledgeable about it). His offer meant he was doing work on our wedding day and it saved us quite a bit of money on renting speakers or hiring a DJ. I didn't want him to feel obligated to buy us something too, but didn't want to say something tacky that would indicate I was expecting a gift. So as a part of thanking him for his offer, I mentioned that his doing this was a wonderful wedding gift. I figured that way, he knew we considered it a gift (and a very generous one at that) without any rudeness or implied expectations.
Poor word choice early in the morning. By wait and see, I meant, when you ask her to play, you will see whether she intends to charge you and how much. (And you should ask what her fee would be during that conversation if it doesn't otherwise come up.)