River Road Farm Wedding in Manchester, VT

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Maggie & Jessie for their stunning River Road Farm Wedding in Manchester, VT.

Preprations for Maggie & Jessie's Big Day

Our groundwork for the big day began many weeks prior, with Maggie & Jessie sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the big day (preparation is a key part of our process). Maggie & Jessie were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Manchester, VT and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for River Road Farm weddings. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Maggie & Jessie were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Maggie & Jessie 's ceremony . 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.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to relax 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, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This River Road Farm 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 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 specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Maggie & Jessie to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Jessie and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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

our dance performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned 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 Maggie & Jessie for having us at their beautiful June wedding at River Road Farm! And thank you to Undressed Moments for sharing these beautiful photos with us!