draft of a disappointed letter to wedding musician

Our musician made a big mistake at the wedding, and I decided we need to tell him so. He sang the wrong song during communion, and I was so disappointed. Instead of a beautiful song about love and service to each other, and our journey together, he sang some super religious song about Jesus that was embarrassing.

He showed up at the church at the last minute and came back to where I was getting ready to ask me what songs he was supposed to play for the ceremony – he didnt even bring a song list with him!

He also stood us up at our first meeting – because he forgot the appointment. I didnt mention that in this letter, and wonder if I should add that.

Here’s the first draft of my email to him.

I’d love feedback on it for tone, what I said, etcetera.

Honestly, I believe he owes us some money back for doing such a bad job. I’d say at least 25% back, since he blew one of the 4 songs, plus his unprofessional behavior.

I’m also considering writing to the church to tell them how disappointed we were in him, he is the music director at the church.

Hello Andy,

We wanted to write to thank you for your musical performance for our wedding. Your singing and piano playing sounded beautiful and we enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, we are very sad to have to tell you how unhappy we were that you made a big mistake in the music at our wedding.

We were both quite surprised that you arrived at the wedding unprepared, and without a song list that we had carefully given you repeatedly.

We had expressed to you both in email and in person that our absolute favorite song, and the most important song for our wedding to us, was The Servant Song, # . It is a beautiful song and it expressed a lot of the themes we wanted to touch on for our wedding, that our choice to marry each other is a conscious choice to be of service to each other, and that is how we express our love to each other.

You didn’t play the song we requested, but instead played a different Servant Song in the songbook during the Eucharist.

It was terribly embarrassing that you sang a heavily religious song about Jesus that had only themes of religion in it at our wedding – some of our guests are not religious and would find that a bizarre song choice at a wedding. It was inappropriate for a wedding and we were so embarrassed that you sang it. And you did not play the song that meant so much to us.

We were disappointed that you came to talk to me, the bride, at the last minute to ask what the songs were. It was stressful. I was too busy and harried to be able to remember to tell you there are at least two songs with the title Servant Song in the songbook, as the church music director who is familiar with the songbook, I expected that you already knew that. Since we had discussed the specific song and its themes with you, I expected you to know the difference between the two songs.

As a professional musician, paid professional wages for this job, we were very disappointed in this mistake, it’s a pretty big mistake and it made us feel sad, frustrated, and embarrassed at our wedding.

Kirstin and K