The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be asked to join Maya & Adam for their stunning The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA.

Preprations for Maya & Adam's Big Day

Our preparations for the big day began well ahead, with Maya & Adam offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Maya & Adam were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Groton, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill 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, Maya & Adam were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Maya & Adam 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to unwind after the heightened 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 lion's share of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The groom and bride's first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, 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. This was a chance for the to join Maya & Adam to share a brief moment in the center of the floor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Adam and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a fantastic 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

East Coast Soul shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. 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 Maya & Adam for having us at their beautiful June wedding at The Barn at Gibbet Hill! And thank you to Linda Barry for sharing these beautiful photos with us!