Let me start off by saying the quartet we hired to play for our Middleton Place wedding with Classical Charleston is top notch. They play very well together and are true professionals at their instruments. They are all highly skilled musicians... and in this area, they do not disappoint. While their performance was absolutely beautiful, my personal requests to Andrew regarding the music for my wedding were not honored and I found this to be highly disappointing.
I specifically asked Andrew to be sure not to play a couple of songs in their repertoire during our prelude or cocktail hour, (one being Vivaldi’s Spring from the Four Seasons), not because they are terrible pieces, but as a music instructor and someone who also plays for weddings, on my wedding day, the last thing I wanted to hear were pieces I teach or play all of the time. I emailed him directly, and I also included my wedding planner in these emails to be sure we were all on the same page. As I am sitting in the gardens waiting to come down the aisle, I hear them playing the exact piece that I requested them to not play. I don’t know if he thought I wouldn’t be able to hear it and therefore, out of sight out of mind, or if he completely forgot, or if he intentionally played a piece I asked him not to play, but in any case I was pretty upset about it at the time.
I specifically asked them to stick to their upbeat classical and jazz pieces listed in their repertoire during the cocktail hour, and as we came in to the cocktail area after pictures, they were playing Christina Perry’s “Thousand Years,” which is neither classical nor jazz, and is also a song I personally really, really dislike (no matter how beautifully it is played). The rest of the cocktail hour included pop songs. Yes, they were played beautifully, but this is not what I asked for.
I had initially requested a solo cello piece to come down the aisle to, and he highly discouraged it, despite it being what I really wanted. I understand we paid for the quartet, but we had the ceremony mic’ed so it should have just been played as requested. I ended up changing the entrance piece and having the cello solo played during the ceremony reading, but it wasn’t my first choice. That piece had a lot of personal meaning so it was disappointing to have to deal with this and had I not already paid him in full at the time of this conversation, I would have simply forfeited my deposit and switched companies.
So, yes. Classical Strings employs top-notch musicians. Their performance will wow your guests. If you have no specific ideas in mind for your music, they will be perfect. However, if you have specific prelude or cocktail hour requests, or if you have a specific vision for the music for your ceremony, I hesitate to recommend a company that did not respect my requests. This interaction was not what I expected, and while I was impressed with their musicianship, I was not so impressed with the other aspects of my experience and this put a damper on what was otherwise a very lovely day.