Wychmere Beach Club Wedding in Harwich Port, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate 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 groundwork for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Marissa & Rick offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Marissa & Rick were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Harwich Port, MA and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Wychmere Beach Club 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.

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 asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a majority of receptions, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Wychmere Beach Club Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we moved into into the couple’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were requested to play the first dance number live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of 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 spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Rick and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to kick off the performance 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 performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get folks relaxed and dancing 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 transitioned into playing tunes 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 Marissa & Rick for having us at their beautiful August wedding at Wychmere Beach Club!