la.bride's reviews

If you are OK with your band possibly not knowing the songs, or even the style of music you want at your wedding, then you may be OK with Fifth Avenue Orchestras under its new ownership. Otherwise, do not use this service.

I notice that there are a lot of great reviews below and with the exception of the last, I do not doubt them. However, what is not said here is that this past spring the Fifth Avenue Orchestras changed ownership and management and with that the quality of service dropped dramatically. (The review on the knot.com is also based on the old ownership btw.) Fifth Avenue as it once existed was the work of the owner, Jack Bielan. He managed the service himself and apparently put care into the events as evidenced by the reviews, however that is NOT the case now.

The new owner is not interested in running a wedding band service himself and yet, has not hired someone to provide the management and oversight provided by the old owner leaving a huge void in the quality they provide. The coordination and care that one would expect from a wedding band service (and was promised to me in hiring FAO) is left to chance. The in depth planning session that Jack had promised was cut to a 3 page basic information survey that we were unable to get the owner on the phone to discuss. At my wedding, the band had no information at all on the type of music they were to play and were not given the song list where we had checked off the songs we liked at the request of the owner (you are not allowed to contact the band prior to the event, but the office guarantees that they will be well prepared based on the information you give the office). This fact only became obvious to me when they started playing current pop songs at my soul/funk/motown wedding.

The new owner’s answer to this is that you choose the band based on the website videos and that's all the assurance customer's have. That was not what I was repeatedly told by the old owner when I choose the service, or the new owner when I talked to him pre-wedding. (The samples of music on the website are so varied that the owner's assertion doesn't even make any sense). I have had a few conversations with the owner following the wedding and they have apologized for the "accident" and admits that was a terrible oversight, he has done nothing to right this wrong. If the new owner’s assertions are true, then I would like future customers to know that they can only expect to have some type of the music played on the website (not their choice of music) at their event. I would not want this type of "accident" to happen to anyone else on their wedding day but I fear with the new owner’s poor customer service and lack of empathy to the importance of an event, it will.

I would like to mention that the band itself was very good (which is why I bumped this review from the 1 star I would have given to the management to 2 stars). However, the fact that the band was very talented just makes me more upset, because I know, had the event not been so mismanaged, the music could have been what I had envisioned for my wedding.