How do I book The European Ensemble Strings for my wedding?
1. Once you verified with us that we are available on your date & time and you are OK with our pricing, please fill out our booking form HERE.2. After receiving the booking form, we will send you the contract within 24 hours. If you don’t receive it, please follow up with us – you can never trust the internet 100%…
3. We hold your date and time in our calendar for 4-5 days – that gives you plenty of time to print our simple agreement, sign it and mail or email it back to us with a reservation fee to secure your date with us. You can also scan it and email it to us and submit the payment electronically.
4. As soon as we get it, you will get a notification via email for your records.
5. All balances must be paid off no later than 15 days prior to your wedding. We will need the remaining balance and the list of songs you love at the same time. Please use our SONGLIST FORM to let us know your song wishes. It is important, because we need more info than just the name of the songs to be able to time everything perfectly.
Your price is not displayed anywhere on your website … and by the way How do I pay you?
Every event is a bit different. There are peak and off-peak times, morning, afternoon and evening weddings/events, short and unusually long performance requests and different distances – these factors are strongly affecting our prices, so we need to know these before we can give you a firm quote. AFTER we have both signed the contract, we need to receive a reservation fee from you. We need the signed contract and the reservation fee to complete our booking. You can send us a check (address will be on the contract), you can do Chase Quick Pay, OR you can use your credit card via PayPal. Please note that the paypal convenience fee that paypal charges will be added to the amount you pay us. Please note, if you hire us for more than one hour, we will need to send you a customized reservation fee request.Pay Trio Reservation Fee:
$350.00 plus PayPal Convenience Fee of $10.00:
What happens on my wedding day?
We will arrive about an hour before your ceremony starts. We will need our chairs set up where you wish us to sit by that time. We take care of everything else. Our setup time is about 5 minutes, so your coordinator will have plenty of opportunity to come by to talk to us about cues and any additional final details.With our PRINCESS package we provide beautiful live music for You and your guests up to one hour. This includes about 20 minutes of prelude music to create a wonderful atmosphere while your guests are seated. Please gives us a hint whether you prefer the traditional classics or contemporary songs or maybe a mix of both.
For the processionals you are welcome to select your favorite tunes: one song for the entrance of mothers & grandmothers, one song for the bridal party and of course, the main song is for Your entrance.
You may need us to play some short, pretty music in the middle of your ceremony. This can be a very special touch if you choose to light a unity candle, pour unity sand or during communion.
We play several songs for the recessional. Altogether, the ceremony music typically lasts about 30 minutes.
This gives you approximately a full hour of music.
Outdoor performances…
Yes, we do play outdoors, but we do not play in the rain (even mist), or without shade in extreme heat under the sun or under a certain temperature without heating elements.
Experience has shown us that we cannot perform well in temperatures below 60°F. (Thankfully, in Dallas and Fort Worth, this is not generally a concern!) At temperatures lower 60F, we must have adequate supplemental heating. Please contact us for further info on this.
We cannot be responsible for weather related cancellations. We do not refund any payments. Please have a “Plan B” for your outdoor wedding ceremony.
We enjoy playing outdoors in the spring and summer. However, our violins are a bit more picky. The instruments must avoid direct exposure to the sun as this causes the instruments to warp and this diminishes the sound quality. For this reason, we require complete shade while using our instruments outdoors in hot weather.
Our agreement will specify all these details. Please do not worry : all the conditions are very reasonable.
Does The European Ensemble Strings work with singers or collaborate with other musicians?
Definitely! Our string trio and string quartet has great experience in accompanying singers/vocalists and other musicians. We bring hard core professional singers if you request it, but we are more than happy to accompany your family friend as well – even if she is not a pro just an enthusiastic amateur who wants to make you happy. Since these tend to be unique to each wedding, please contact us with your specific requirements. Normally, these types of special performances require a rehearsal with the guest artist.To do list before performance…
1.If you booked us for your wedding ceremony, please send us the final payment and our songlist form at least 15 days before your wedding. If we are performing on your corporate event or private party, please make sure we have the final payment 15 days prior to the event. We can provide proper invoice and W9 if needed. 2. Please prepare 2-3 or 4 chairs for us (depending on whether you hired us as a string duo, string trio or string quartet) where you wish us to sit 30 minutes before we are scheduled to start our performance. 3. Things often change over time after booking the musicians. Please verify your wedding ceremony or corporate event start time with us when you send us the final payment. 4. Please provide sufficient light to see our sheet music. If you think that your event will be in low light conditions, please let us know in advance. In this case we will bring our own mini lights at no cost to you.How many songs can I pick / how do I choose my wedding songs?
You are either a Traditional Bride, a Contemporary Bride or somewhere between. We have very nice song selection for all 3 options. Check out our Program Ideas page to get an idea how this works and feel free to mix and match. We have more than 350 songs in our repertoire: traditional classical music, jewish music, traditional hymns, contemporary christian songs, romantic french and italian music selection, AND an absolute awesome, fantastic contemporary pop songs that we call “today’s favorites”.What types of events can I hire the European Ensemble Strings for?
Wedding Ceremonies, Corporate Events, Fundraisers, Tea Parties and Wine Tasting, Retirement Communities, Private and Birthday Parties, Receptions, Ribbon Cuttings, Christmas Parties, Marriage Proposals, Church Services, Funerals.…Or any event where a touch of class is needed.
We have an incredibly versatile repertoire and special arrangements for all these types of events. With our more than 350 songs – over 10 hours of classical, oldies and contemporary music we are the perfect entertainment for any event.
We serve mainly the Dallas area, (McKinney, Plano, Grapevine, Irving, Fort Worth, Aubrey, Corinth, Denton) but we are happy to travel. We will have to add some travel fee to our basic compensation. Please contact us for exact pricing.