Wychmere Beach Club Wedding in Harwich Port, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Marissa & Rick for their stunning Wychmere Beach Club Wedding in Harwich Port, MA.

Preprations for Marissa & Rick's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Marissa & Rick expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Marissa & Rick were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Harwich Port, MA and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Wychmere Beach Club weddings. Our process for loading in and setting up at any given venue is a big part of our preparation process. 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

In this case, East Coast Soul was not involved with couple's ceremony, with those arrangements having already been taken care of.

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 heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of receptions, we is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Wychmere Beach Club Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we headed into into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is almost always one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were asked to perform the first dance song live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Marissa & Rick to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this particular performance, the bride and her father danced together. Rick and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a fantastic way to kick off 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 commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned into playing tunes 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 Marissa & Rick for having us at their beautiful August wedding at Wychmere Beach Club!