Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited to join Sarah & Ben for their stunning Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA.

Preprations for Sarah & Ben's Big Day

Our preparations for the big day began months in advance, with Sarah & Ben expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (preparation is a key part of our process). Sarah & Ben were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Boston, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Artists For Humanity weddings. We get a lot of questions about the logistics of loading in to any given venue. 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.

Ceremony

Part of our preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Sarah & Ben were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Sarah & Ben 's ceremony started at 6:00 pm on and took place Artists for Humanity at Artists For Humanity. East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place. Sarah & Ben provided a beautiful collection of songs for us to perform for the ceremony:

• Processional: The Who – Love Reign O’er Me
• Recessional: Bill Withers – Lovely Day

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, cocktail hour took place Second floor of Artists for Humanity. We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of celebrations, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Artists For Humanity Wedding was no different.

The couple’s First Dance

The groom and bride's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were asked to play the first dance number live, instead of performing it from a recording. Sarah & Ben danced to The Horrah, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Sarah & Ben to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Ben and his mother shared a dance to The Temptations - My Girl/Ain't Too Proud to Beg. Parent dances are a fantastic way to start the dance party portion of the evening. 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

East Coast Soul dance performances often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved into performing music by artists like Whitney Houston, Prince, Michael Jackson 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 Sarah & Ben for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Artists For Humanity!