Tourterelle Restaurant & Inn Wedding in

East Coast Soul was blessed to be asked to join Danielle & Scott for their stunning Tourterelle Restaurant & Inn Wedding in .

Preprations for Danielle & Scott's Big Day

Our groundwork for the big day began months in advance, with Danielle & Scott expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Danielle & Scott were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for Tourterelle Restaurant & Inn 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

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, Danielle & Scott were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Danielle & Scott 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

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 do our part 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a majority of wedding celebrations, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Tourterelle Restaurant & Inn 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 groom and bride's first dance is traditionally 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 wedding in particular, we were requested to play the first dance number live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief 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 Danielle & Scott to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their parents. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father danced together. Scott and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great 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 performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 Danielle & Scott for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Tourterelle Restaurant & Inn! And thank you to Anne Mientka Photography for sharing these beautiful photos with us!