I struggled with whether or not to write this review, but I have to. We hired Harlequin Chamber Music a year in advance. At first, things went smoothly. I got my selections to Hann...ah months ahead of time. However, around June is when things got weird. It took a month or two for HCM to confirm they got payment. Then my mother couldn’t get a hold of them by e-mail or phone. It took two weeks for them to get back to us with requests to re-send the music selections. It had been a while and I had no problem double and triple sending things to make sure this process went smoothly. Our venue coordinator and my aunt were listed day-of contacts, and they had my mom’s number as well. With so many ways to reach us, I’m still in awe of how things played out:
• The evening before the wedding, I received an e-mail from HCM asking how long our ceremony would roughly last because one of the musicians had another gig immediately after ours. I gave HCM a rough estimate of how long our ceremony might take in an effort to be accommodating. We hired them for an hour, and I was concerned about them leaving early considering how much we paid. I really didn’t want to be “that person,” so I let it go.
• By 6:30 p.m., the ceremony musicians should have been set up and playing songs as our guests trickled in. At 6:40, there was no music. I figured “okay, they’re just a little behind, no big deal.” Wrong. Five minutes before my bridesmaids had to walk, they weren’t even there! I got very overwhelmed and stressed that I would have no music at all. My DJ even offered to step in and save the day. As he got ready, I called Hannah on my personal phone because we had no word from her, even this close to the ceremony. With literal minutes to spare before the ceremony, the musicians arrived.
• On top of being late, they did not play the song we had picked for our unity ritual. Just silence. When the ceremony was over, they didn’t stay to play any postlude songs. They picked up their stuff and literally ran out the door.
• We did get a 75% refund. However, when addressing specific problems, Hannah redirected the blame to our venue coordinator rather than owning what went wrong on her end. According to HCM, our unity ceremony song was not played at the request of our venue coordinator. We have yet to confirm this, but even so, why would you not touch base with the bride or her mother (who paid you) that this is what THEY wanted? Or even just to confirm that the decision was not being relayed by the bride through the coordinator? We were also told the musicians were 30 minutes late due to another wedding running long. If you are booking events so closely that they overlap and asking other customers to sacrifice paid time, you’re doing it wrong.
If you make mistakes, you need to own them. If you cannot deliver on promises you make to paying customers, you need to change. If you have an issue with one avenue of communication, you need to try another. i.e. call the venue instead of just the coordinator, call my aunt’s number (which was listed), or call the person who paid you. There were options.
TL:DR, we paid for an hour, we got 20 disappointing minutes. I am generally laid back and can handle a few mistakes, but I feel like my easygoing nature was taken advantage of. For the unprofessionalism and undue stress it caused on the day of my wedding and the seemingly flippant disregard for their own failings, I would not recommend Harlequin Chamber Music to anyone.