Artists For Humanity Wedding in Boston, MA

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

Preprations for Sarah & Ben's Big Day

Our preparations for the big day began well ahead, with Sarah & Ben offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Sarah & Ben were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Boston, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Artists For Humanity 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, Sarah & Ben were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Sarah & Ben 's ceremony started at 6:00 pm on and was held 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 approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to relax 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, cocktail hour took place Second floor of Artists for Humanity. We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of weddings, we is asked to handle 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 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 playing it from a recording. Sarah & Ben danced to The Horrah, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Ben to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their parents. For this particular wedding, 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 an amazing 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

East Coast Soul performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved 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 Sarah & Ben for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Artists For Humanity!