Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed 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 wedding day began months in advance, with Sarah & Ben offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Sarah & Ben were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

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

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding 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 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 contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend to. 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 Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Artists For Humanity Wedding was no different.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

The newly married couple's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were asked to play the first dance number live, instead of playing it from a recording. Sarah & Ben danced to The Horrah, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Ben to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor 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 great way to kick off the main dance performance. 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 often start with older 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, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 Sarah & Ben for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Artists For Humanity!