He says he cannot cut the marble himself so I will have to get it cut and polished by the marble place. Does that sound right?

I think it might be a good idea to find someone else. He can't CUT the marble? I could see it if he didn't have his own equipment for bullnosing or polishing the edges. But CUTTING??? Are you sure he knows how to hold a TROWEL???

And for the record, yes, you can use carrara tile with the Noble niches. The marble rests on the edges of the tile in the niche.

I would listen to Bill and find someone else to do your tile work. Those prefabricated niches and shelves are very common and his comments are huge red flags.

OMG! Bills right! Get someone else fast, this reminds me of when I had some Berber carpet to install in a small living room years ago, the guy was so lost he ended up cutting up my brand new 6" base boards with his cutting tool, breaking tile where the carpet met the tile, ran the carpet the wrong way in one space so the nap was different. Sent me to Home Depot for supplies, wrong supplies I found out later cause he didn't know what he was doing after 2 full days of him trying to lay this carpet in this tiny living room he says to me you can't lay berber! I said they wouldn't sell it if you it couldn't be laid! He walked off the job! Left me with broken tile, messed up baseboards and carpet ruined! My point - get someone else fast! Don't rush the process your going to have to look at it for forever! Oh and that guy was a referral from a HD employee. hummmm

I'm betting he means he can't profile it himself, since he says he's going to have to get it polished somewhere else. Not that this excuses him, because I'm a DIYer and I have a wet polisher, complete with pads from 40-what is it, something like 3000?, which I used to fabricate a silestone countertop from remnants and profile/polish several porcelain tiles with visible edges for our master bath, and I'm preparing to do the same for DD's bath.

I also have a niche waiting for me for DD's bath, and I've figured out where I'm putting the shelf in it.

And he is uncomfortable with an alcove tub?? As they say on SNL, "REALLY??"

I agree there are tons of red flags here. Have you given him a deposit yet? There must be other contracting fish in the sea where you are...is there an angieslist in your town? That's a good place to start.

Where do you get a prefab shower niche? I'm going with white subway tile for the tiles. Do you have to cut out the hole and tile it and trim it or do they sell tile niches that would go with white subway?

The ones I use (when I use a prefab) are made by a company called Innovis (the same company that makes the "Better Benches"). I've got a small pictorial on how to install them on my website's How-to gallery:

Here is a link that might be useful: How to install a prefab niche