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 groundwork for the wedding began well ahead, 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 happy to be a key part of 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

Part of our groundwork 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 interested in 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 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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a blend 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 bulk of celebrations, we is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Bar Harbor Club Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we changed gears to into the couple’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is invariably 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 particular wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening 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, East Coast Soul is often requested 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 particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. The groom and his mother danced together as well. 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned 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!