When you enter into a contract with your entertainment provider, whether it’s a wedding band, a magician or a DJ, you normally will be expected to provide some kind of nonrefundable deposit along with your signature to secure the date. The amount may vary, but a 50% deposit is fairly common.

If you’re a bride, or just planning a party and this is first time you’ve ever bought entertainment services, this can be a scary thing. What if the event gets cancelled? What if someone dies the week before? What if it rains on our outdoor beach birthday party? Do I get my deposit back?

Of course the answer will depend on the wording of the deposit clause in the contract, but most likely if the event is cancelled because an unforeseen circumstances, you will likely be out your deposit. But let’s dig deeper.

It’s easier for people to understand why a caterer, or even a venue would request a deposit. They have to buy food or they are reserving the space exclusively for you and must turn down other business. But a musician isn’t purchasing any perishables, right? Well, not exactly. The busy nights for any event entertainer is Saturdays, followed closely by Fridays. There are only 52 Saturdays in a year and each one represents an opportunity cost. If your Aunt Mattie falls face first into the minestrone two days before your graduation party, the band still needs to be compensated for that Saturday night that they committed to your party. It is entirely possible that they have turned down other clients to commit to your party. While it’s sad that Aunt Mattie decided to pass two days before your big event, this is not the fault of your event vendors.

What can you do if the unforeseen happens? The first thing is to have a conversation with your entertainment provider. While they may be under no obligation to reschedule, many will try to work with you and apply part or all of your deposit to another date. The flexibility they have will depend on how in demand they are, how full their calendar is and on what day of the week you want your new date. You certainly can’t expect them to bump another client because you need to reschedule. And nor can you expect them to give you another Saturday night on the busiest part of wedding season. But maybe they’re willing to apply all (or some) of your deposit to a Tuesday night, or an off-season Friday night.

This is a conversation you can have with your entertainer BEFORE signing the contract. Ask the “what if” scenarios. Just understand that if this conversation drags out too long, your vendor may start to question your commitment to the date.

Another option is to take out Event Cancellation Insurance for your date.

What is typically covered by event cancellation insurance?
Fire, earthquakes, flooding, blizzards, hurricanes, terrorism, headline entertainers or speaker cancellation, outbreak of disease.

Event cancellation insurance probably won’t cover things like lack of ticket sales, or the time spent planning the event.

My cousin got married last year in Philly, and she hired one of my favorite wedding bands. It was a 10 piece orchestra, with horns, 3 singers and a full rhythm section. They were simply amazing. This band has been voted Best Wedding Band for several years running by The Knot, Wedding Wire and NBC. As a professional wedding entertainer myself I couldn’t help asking my cousin how much she paid. She admitted to paying about $10,000. So then I got to wondering what other traditional wedding entertainment charges to play a reception. I went on to GigMasters, and asked for some quotes to see what some of those bands would charge. Here’s what I found:

I asked for bids for a 5 hour reception in NYC, including cocktail, dinner and dancing. I specified that the ceremony was in a separate room, and that I was expecting 100 guests. I put in a Saturday about 14 months out as my wedding date.

Charisma, a 6 piece band out of Newton, CT responded immediately with a price of $5,500. The Polka Brothers from NYC responded quickly with $3,000 for 4 polka musicians. Alchemy from Carmel, NY wanted $2,800 for 6 performers. Barynya, an 8 piece Russian/Gypsy band asked for $5,500. But that’s not the entire picture.

I asked around to several industry friends of mine that run established wedding bands and who DON’T advertise on GigMasters. They were telling me they charge prices of $10,000 – $14,000 for 7, 8 and 9 piece wedding orchestras. Some of them never found the need to advertise because their calendars were booked out 12-18 months just on word of mouth. Others had started advertising on GigMasters and similar sites, but at some point outgrew those sites. As they became more and more known, and were able to charge more for their Saturday nights, they found GigMasters less useful since they were now competing with bands that were willing to charge significantly less.

While you may get a good show from bands that charge $3,000-$4,000 (I’ve never actually heard the Polka Brothers), the bands that are able to charge $10,000-$14,000 are the ones that have nurtured and grown their reputations with each wedding at which they’ve performed. I’m sure that the brides and grooms that have hired them thought they were worth every penny.

I know that many of you have never planned a party before. Perhaps you’re planning a wedding or your husband’s 40th Birthday Party. This list is a product of many years of providing private event entertainment (specifically Dueling Pianos, but this list is applicable to most forms of entertainment). These are the questions you should be asking your performers before you sign on the dotted line.

1. Where (and for whom) do you do the majority of your shows?
What you are trying to find out is how experienced and equipped the performers are for working private events. Many bar performers represent themselves as event entertainers but may not have the experience working with venues and professional event planners, or they may lack the equipment or insurance that is necessary, especially for larger venues.

2. Can you show proof of insurance?
While I’m not convinced that this is always necessary for event entertainers, this speaks to the professionalism of the entertainer. If the entertainer does a lot of private events in nice hotels and country clubs, they will be more likely to carry liability insurance, as many of the higher-end venues require this. If you entertainer is not insured, then perhaps they are not working many of these venues, which could mean that they are not attracting the top end private event clients.

3. What is the cancellation policy?
Most entertainment companies will penalize you for canceling a performance that has already been contracted. They look at dates on the calendar as inventory. If you reserve your date, they can’t sell it to anyone else. So if you cancel, they may not be able to rebook. It’s similar to how event venues or photographers view their calendars. If you think there may be a need to cancel or change your date, discuss this with the entertainment BEFORE signing a contract and see if there is any flexibility on their policy. I’ve written contracts for clients that allowed them to cancel up to 4 weeks after entering the contract to suit a particular situation.

4. How much is the deposit and is it refundable?
This goes hand in hand with the previous question. Usually deposits are not refundable. This serves as incentive for a client not to cancel or reschedule. A common deposit structure is 50% upon signing and 50% upon arrival at the venue.

5. Do you bring stage lighting?
A pretty standard thing for entertainers to supply, but some of the smaller groups won’t have this, and some of the higher-tier entertainers may expect that this would be supplied by an outside production company. You should ask.

6. Are the people I am seeing in the video the same as those working my event?
If not, who will be working my event? In the case of New York, NY Dueling Pianos, we have a brand of entertainment that is accurately represented by all of our promo videos, regardless of the individual entertainer, not unlike The Blue Man Group, or a national touring company of a Broadway Musical.

7. How long do you need to set up?
Make sure you coordinate this with your venue. If the venue is using your space for another client prior to your time slot, you want to ask the venue what is the earliest time that the entertainment can load in, and then verify that this is sufficient with your entertainment.

8. Ask the venue if there is specific wording they require on the performer’s insurance certificate.
Some venues just want to know the entertainer is insured, but many require that they, the venue, (and sometimes the parent company) are listed on the entertainer’s insurance certificate as Additional Insured.

9. Find out the power requirements of the performers. Most commercial circuits are 20 Amps, and residential circuits are usually 15 Amps. Depending on what electronics the entertainers are running they may require a single 20 Amp dedicated circuit. Dedicated means that nothing else is drawing power from that circuit. If they are running incandescent lights, or have a large sound system the entertainers may ask for 2 or 3 dedicated circuits, or even more for the more elaborate shows.

10. Ask for space (and staging) requirements from your entertainers. This includes length, depth, height and placement. Verify with the venue that this can be accommodated. If it can’t, find out how flexible your entertainers are regarding these dimensions and placement. Many performers can do their show with no staging platform at all if necessary but they will all need a certain amount of space to set up. Know what this is.

Songs from Broadway are smart choices for weddings. Generally, musical theater songs are character-driven, originating from a need for a character in a specific situation to express emotion through song. Pop songs can do the same, of course, and the best song choices for weddings come from any genre when the melody and lyrics rise above a specific time & place and ‘speak’ to a broad spectrum of people.

Broadway shows tell a story: there is conflict, but before achieving a resolution (often with a happy ending) characters will relay their situation in song, telling us what they ‘want.’ When an ‘I want’ song soars so that people empathize with the character, you’ve got a song with universal appeal. And when the subject of that appeal is love, you’ve got a candidate for a great wedding song.
Wedding dance, wedding song
Broadway songs are crafted for singers to sing. That might sound like a silly thing to say, but pop songs can sometimes be a creation of a recording studio: more machine than voice. A Broadway tune is crafted to be performed eight times a week. As a bonus: vocalists love to perform them! These are songs that vocalists become very familiar with: they use them for auditions, they know the character (perhaps even played the role in a production), they are familiar with the story and the character’s arc. All of that boils down to: your vocalist will have more emotion to relay during a Broadway song, and that emotion is shared on wedding day.

Two of the most popular Broadway songs for weddings are One Hand, One Heart from West Side Story and They Were You from The Fantasticks – both happen to be duets. Here’s our best picks of the top 20 most popular Broadway songs for weddings:

Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Elton John – The Lion King)
I’ve Never Been in Love Before (Guys and Dolls)
Till There was You (The Music Man)
Ten Minutes Ago (Cinderella)
Someone Like You (Jekyll & Hyde)
In Whatever Time We Have (Children of Eden)
Just in Time (Bells are Ringing)
With You (Pippin)
Grow Old With You (The Wedding Singer The Musical)

Duets
Believe (The Scarlet Pimpernel)
One Hand, One Heart (West Side Story)
They Were You (The Fantasticks)
The Next Ten Minutes (The Last Five Years)
Who Will Love Me As I Am? (Side Show)
Take Me as I Am (Jekyll & Hyde)
All I Ask of You (Phantom of the Opera)
In Whatever Time We Have (Children of Eden)
As Long As You’re Mine (Wicked)
Sun and Moon (Miss Saigon)
A Whole New World (Aladdin)