Bar Harbor Club Wedding in Bar Harbor, ME

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought 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 well ahead, with the bride and groom sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). The bride and groom were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for Bar Harbor Club 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

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 providing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, 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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing 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 lion's share of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. 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 transitioned into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The groom and bride's first dance is traditionally one of the most emotional 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 perform the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join this beautiful couple to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their parents. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. The groom and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start the performance 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

our performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get everyone 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 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 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!