This thread reminds me of a wedding I played in Houston just a few weeks before I moved here back in 1997. It was a "society" wedding for some very wealthy people in Houston who paid me with a check right before the service. I went and cashed it the next day, and it came back with the account closed! Basically with that check there was nothing I could do. I was so mad!
I started calling them daily, calls which were never returned, and was going to persue it to the end, but as I say, I got a job here and never had to opportunity to collect. Had I continued doing that sort of freelancing I definitely would have changed my business practices!
JU