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I'm confused by who you refer to as "He"
but I don't see that you actually asked about this beforehand. I honestly feel bad about your situation, but you should have asked and made sure if the band would be paid or not during their break.
however, it kind of sounds like you had a coordinator, and are saying the coordinator should have investigated this. If so, yes, you should confront the coordinator and have him explain why this wasn't figured out beforehand.
Maybe you guys can come to an agreement. 1150 is a lot of money, so I wouldn't just let it fly. The amount in the contract is the amount you owe, so it's more their problem that they didn't clarify this. it sucks too that your coordinator already gave them the money, now they have the control.
This is a crappy situation. :(
Ask a lawyer, this one is touchy. It's a little shady that they got payout from your coordinator, b/c she would have no idea about the arrangement.
Woah, not cool on the part of the band!
I'd say they deserve to be compensated for their time, but not at the full rate; maybe 1/2 or 1/3, since they're not working during that time!
Did your original contract stipulate the number of hours they would be working? or any other loopholes you could use to fight this? Also, did the coordinator write a check in your name, or her own? If she wrote an unauthorized check in your name, you may be able to stop payment through the bank (although it may be too late, since it's been a few weeks).
I'd say fight and try to get some of your money back; also, utilize the wedding industry's system -- word of mouth is a powerful thing in their business! So review them eVERywhere, and explain that while the music was great, their business ethics weren't so helpful, and warn other brides to be cautious and pay attention to the details.
Hi everyone. Thanks for the quick feedback. To clarify, the "him/he" is the band manager.
The contract I signed early-on stipulated that they would perform for four hours, from 7-11pm, for $2950. However, after that, I emailed the band manager to ask if I could break up the performance time into the one hour/three hour bits (so still four hours of performance time)-- and specified that the new times for their playing time would be 6:15-7:15 for cocktails, and 9-12 for dancing.
He said yes, that schedule was perfect, and never sent me a revised contract, or said anything about paying them for the break. So, I assumed it was fine, and that they just eat dinner, then retire to their rooms for a bit of a rest. The contract does not specify that dinner breaks are to be paid at $700/hour (doesn't say anything about breaks).
If he had told me it would be an extra $1150, I would have said no, and had the string trio play during cocktails, and the band play continuously from dinner through dancing. He never gave me that choice.
The coordinator was just a day-of person who was a friend of my mother's, and just filled in the amount he told her, without checking with me about the overtime.
I'd say if the only signed contract you have says $2950, you can probably take him to small claims court and get the $1150 back. I dunno, I'm no lawyer, but if he's going to twist the verbal contract, why can't you?
How much trouble is the money worth to you?
I can afford it without a problem, but it's just the principle, you know?
The fact that I'm currently living in England, and don't have any more travel plans to the US in place, makes it a little more difficult to fight.
I just have trouble letting $1150 in savings go, when we're trying to save every bit we can for a big down payment for when we move.
Oh well! I've definitely learned my lesson about getting updated contracts! :)
or rather, how much trouble is this worth to the band? they don't want someone telling everybody about their shady practices. Look into small claims court. either way you'll make some money back and you can resolve things amicably.
As a wedding musician, I say: it was your responsibility, but also the band leader's responsibility, to bring up the issue of more time = more money. It's not ok of him to just decide how much extra to charge you, but it was risky of you not to realize you were asking the whole batch of them to use up several more hours of their day at your wedding. You realize of course there's nothing they can do with that "down" time in the middle of your wedding but wait for you. My guess is that if you'd talked about it in advance you could have come up with a price that would have been ok with both sides, but it's going to be way difficult to get money back from somebody who's already been paid and moved on. When this sort of thing happens to me I chalk it up to a learning experience (which I paid for). One time our band was un-hired at the last minute by an organization that hadn't gotten it together to publicize the performance. We had gone down to Charleston and this gig was between two others, so it was a big hole in our schedule. The lady said, "That will teach you to use a written contract in the future." (We had just had a verbal agreement - it was a religious organization and I'd trusted them!)
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Hi hive! We had our wedding a couple of weeks ago, and the only unresolved thing is the bill from the band.
Months ago, I emailed the band leader with a proposed timeline, asking if I could break up their performance time into two bits, and have them play for cocktails (1 hour), have our string trio take over for dinner, and then have the band come back for lively after-dinner dancing music (3 hours). I told him if this was not feasible, to email me such, so I can otherwise structure the timing of the night and fit the two groups together differently. He wrote back that my planning was excellent, and that this was the schedule he often recommended to brides. He did not send over a revised contract, and did not mention anything about this increasing my bill.
However, I've now found out that on our wedding night, he had my coordinator write out the check for an additional $1150, to cover paying them for the break time. (in full at the same price as their extra performance time charge: $700/hour)
I have a huge problem with this, obviously. I feel like it was his responsibility to tell me that splitting up the performance time would increase my bill by 40%. If he had told me, I would've had them start later, and play continuously.
Do you think I'm being unfair? He's arguing that they were still under my employ. I'm arguing that he should've said NO in the first place, and told me it didn't fit our contract, and that they couldn't just retire to their hotel rooms (I paid for them) for that hour and a half. They already have the money, so right now I'm just trying to get it back. I wish I'd asked for a revised contract, but alas, I trusted him. :(