Arlington String Quartet

We decided to hire the Arlington String Quartet after our original quartet had to cancel on us with less than 2 months before our wedding. We chose the Arlington String Quartet due to a recommendation, and because other area quartets were already booked for our wedding date. When we met with Andrew, the manager, he seemed rushed at our meeting, and in a hurry to end it. During this meeting, I requested that the quartet stay and play music until all of our guests were through the receiving line at our ceremony, as this was important to my husband and I. We stated we would be willing to pay whatever the additional charge would be for this, and emphasized its importance to us. At this meeting I also asked if it would be at all possible for the quartet to attend our rehearsal, and again, we offered to pay an additional fee for having even one member be present at our rehearsal. We were pretty much laughed in the face for even asking the quartet to attend the rehearsal, and our question was answered with a definite "We don't do that". Scrambling to communicate with the quartet and my wedding party before it was time to begin our ceremony, Andrew said he would give a sign to the first couple so they knew when to begin walking down the aisle. Having gotten the sign, the first couple began walking down the aisle, only to find they walked over half way down in complete silence. These are the types of things I wanted to avoid by having a member of the quartet present at the rehearsal. Furthermore, the quartet stopped playing and packed up their equipment in the front of the church when three-fourths of our guests had not even been ushered out of their pews yet. Knowing it was important to us for them to continue playing until all our guests were through the receiving line, we were surprised and very disappointed they stopped playing so early, and loudly packed up their instruments with about 100 guests looking at them and having to be ushered out in silence. Because the quartet was rude, refused to attend our rehearsal, and would not meet with us to discuss our ceremony music after we had booked them (all communication after our initial meeting had to be done via e-mail), and did not stay as we had specifically requested until our guests were all ushered out, after we stressed to them in person and through e-mail how important this was to us, we would not recommend this group.