Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be asked to join Sarah & Ben for their stunning Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA.

Preprations for Sarah & Ben's Big Day

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

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Boston, MA and began our standard load-in and sound check for Artists For Humanity 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

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Sarah & Ben were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Sarah & Ben 's ceremony started at 6:00 pm on and took place Artists for Humanity at Artists For Humanity. 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 arrived, the ceremony took place. Sarah & Ben provided a beautiful collection of songs for us to perform for the ceremony:

• Processional: The Who – Love Reign O’er Me
• Recessional: Bill Withers – Lovely Day

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 relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, cocktail hour took place Second floor of Artists for Humanity. 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 Artists For Humanity Wedding was no different.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

The couple's first dance is invariably one of the most meaningful parts of the big day. 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 number live, instead of performing it from a recording. Sarah & Ben danced to The Horrah, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. 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 Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Ben to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, the bride and her father danced together. Ben and his mother shared a dance to The Temptations - My Girl/Ain't Too Proud to Beg. Parent dances are a fantastic 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 found this is a great way to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved 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 Sarah & Ben for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Artists For Humanity!