Bar Harbor Club Wedding in Bar Harbor, ME

East Coast Soul was grateful to be asked to join this beautiful couple for their stunning Bar Harbor Club Wedding in .

Preprations for the couple's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began months in advance, with the bride and groom expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). The bride and groom were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Bar Harbor Club weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. 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 East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, The bride and groom were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. The bride and groom '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 arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide 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 providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening 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 bulk of receptions, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Bar Harbor Club Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding complete, 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 wedding performances, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join this beautiful couple to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. The groom and his mother shared a dance as well. 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 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 beginning of our set list. 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 this beautiful couple for having us at their beautiful August wedding at Bar Harbor Club! And thank you to Chris Bennett for sharing these beautiful photos with us!