Why I Hate Weddings (long)

[Dips]

I recently joined a pool of musicians that plays fife and drum at conventions in Boston. We charge $100 per hour/per musician with a one hour minimum. Usually I'm only playing for a total of 5-10 minutes to get $100.

Sure that sounds like a lot of money for 5-10 minutes "work."

But that's the thing. The 10 minutes of playing is the easy part. We truly enjoy it. Beside the time spent learning, memorizing (we don't use sheet music) and rehearsing, there's also the time it takes to get to and from a venue in Boston, usually during rush hour. We always plan to arrive around 30 minutes before scheduled so we have time to go over what is wanted, decide on music, and deal with the occasional "OMG! The bus came back early, you need to go on right NOW!!!111" [If we're all there, we actually like this as it means we get finished early, but it really sucks if, say, our sole drummer got caught in traffic and isn't there 30 minutes ahead of schedule.]

And sometimes things are behind schedule and we have to wait a while before we go on.

Then there are the expenses: gas, parking, T-fare. The garb and the instrument weren't given to any of us for free either.

So we have no patience with this one event planner who comes up after we're done doing the job and packing up, looks at her watch and makes snide remarks that we get paid for an hour and we're running out after ten minutes. <grrrrr>

[MoxisPilot]

....And this is why I eloped.

[pile of monkeys]

I guess I lucked out- when I got married, I had a string trio from the local university play. Their fee was very reasonable, they did a great job, and they even researched and learned a new piece for our first dance. I had their check (gratuity included) all made out in an envelope, and they were paid as soon as their duties were completed. They also got a few free bottles of wine out of the deal- the caterer provided the bartender, but we bought all our own alcohol, so the bartenders had pre-opened a few bottles that we wouldn't have been able to return, so we were giving them away to vendors as they left (to be transported in a locked car trunk, of course).