My wedding is in 18 days! I hired a wedding band to perform our wedding in upstate New York over a year ago. Our wedding venue is just minutes from Canada, and we hired them before COVID19. We've paid them a 25% deposit and back in April 2021 that I had concerns about moving forward given border/travel uncertainty.
The band told me that they already spent my deposit on union dues and to apply for their visa to work in the USA. We are now just over two weeks away from my wedding and they still do not have proper paperwork in place to perform.
I've gone ahead and hired a band, paid ANOTHER 50% deposit with them, so I have backup entertainment in place.
The band is refusing to release me from my contract even though we are just days away and said that they would not return the deposit on the contract because they were holding the date for us and refused other performances. From my perspective, they are not fulfilling their contractual obligations and therefore need to refund 100% of our deposit.
I'm grateful I have a backup plan, but I'm still feeling so conflicted about what to do here. Do I tell the band it's off? I feel like if I cancel with them, they definitely won't return my deposit. The sad thing is, the band hasn't even reached out to me about wedding planning arrangements (i.e. music selections, ceremony setup, cocktail hour music, etc.) It's all been so unprofessional and unreasonable.
Does anyone have a similar story or any words of wisdom?!
Thank you, kindly! We're still so excited for our wedding whether it'll be a DJ or a live band!