—by Olivia Hitt

The first wedding gig of 2022 was 10 days away. Music was selected, contract signed, and fees paid. Then the well-laid plans were disrupted when my husband arrived home from an out-of-state business trip and decided to take a COVID-19 test prior to having to leave for another trip.The test was positive. 

My husband quarantined immediately upon testing positive. I notified the bride and her wedding coordinator explaining the situation. I felt horrible having to cancel since this bride had waited for me until after my maternity leave of 2021 to book me even after I had suggested other talented harpists in the area that she could book for her wedding. While the current guidance for isolation and quarantine meant that the 10 days remaining could be sufficient, I told the bride and coordinator that I could not guarantee that I would be able to perform the gig since if any of the rest of us became symptomatic or tested positive, the quarantine time would restart. 

Since the situation was not the fault of the bride, I offered to give a full refund (including the non-refundable deposit) so the bride could recoup her losses and hire someone else that would not be a potential super spreader of COVID. To help her find a replacement, I recommended other harpist colleagues in the area that would be willing to perform at the wedding. To my astonishment, instead of accepting the refund and finding a replacement, she came back wanting to “wait and see” if I would become symptomatic or not.

I replied that waiting was fine, but she had to let me know by close of business Monday before the Saturday wedding if she wanted to cancel the contract and still receive a full refund. She replied that she still wanted to wait, but that if I did become sick, would I be willing to record the music so the DJ could play it for the ceremony? The wedding coordinator quickly jumped in and said that if I did record the music, I wouldn’t have to deal with transportation and mileage so I should give a discount on my price. I was surprised at this counter offer from the coordinator, but decided that it would be justifiable to refund the rehearsal fee only since there would be extra time required to record and edit the music.

To make matters more interesting, I quickly scanned the bride’s music selections and noticed that almost all the ceremony music was not in the public domain, and I did not have the mechanical rights to record those songs. Unfortunately, it was too late to obtain rights to record. I explained this situation to them and offered to let the bride substitute public domain pieces for any non-public domain pieces in the ceremony. At that point, the bride finally decided it would be best to cancel the contract to recoup the entire fee. A wise decision since I started exhibiting COVID symptoms. To be honest, I half-expected her to reply asking me to play in the ceremony, masked, even with symptoms! We all recovered from COVID with no issues. Here’s to the upcoming fall wedding season—’til death or COVID do us part! •