Gedney Farm Wedding in New Marlborough, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be asked to join Yael & Richard for their stunning Gedney Farm Wedding in New Marlborough, MA.

Introductions and Preprations for Yael & Richard's Big Day

Yael & Richard first reached out to us in February of 2016. Our planning for the wedding day began months in advance, with Yael & Richard expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Yael & Richard were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to New Marlborough, MA and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Gedney Farm weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. This is a part of the day that we take seriously, spending extra time to avoid rushing, and ensuring our gear is properly tuned for the room. Gendey Farm's performance space is a beautiful, spacious old barn that provides a wonderful two story venue for any wedding. Decorated with simple white lights, it truly is a sight to behold.

Ceremony

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Yael & Richard were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Yael & Richard 's ceremony started at 6:30 pm on and was held in the tent at the rear of the venue at Gedney Farm. East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Guitar performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place. Yael & Richard provided a beautiful collection of songs for us to perform for the ceremony:

• Processional: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
• “Bride’s Entrance”: Theme From The Princess Bride
• Recessional: Signed Sealed Delivered

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing a blend of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, cocktail hour took place bottom floor of barn/outdoor patio. We provided a Piano/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a majority of receptions, we is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Gedney Farm Wedding was no different. The guests of honor crushed it by dancing in to Celebrate by Kool & The Gang with the wedding guests cheering them in.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always one of the most emotional parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. Yael & Richard danced to Hakuna Matata from the Lion King, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this part of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Yael & Richard to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, Yael and her father danced to I Feel A Change Comin’ On by Bob Dylan. Richard and his mother shared a dance to You'll Be In My Heart by Phil Collins. Parent dances are a great way to kick off the main dance performance. We often ask guests to join the couple and their parents on the dance floor, and then move directly in to the rest of the performance.

Dance Party

our shows often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned into performing music by artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince and more. Finally, we ended the night performing contemporary material that everyone could sing along with.

Guests danced non-stop from beginning to end, and we limited our breaks to ensure people had as much time to dance as possible.

Thanks so much to Yael & Richard for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Gedney Farm!