Beauport Hotel Wedding in Gloucester

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought to join Sarah & Matt for their stunning Beauport Hotel Wedding in Gloucester.

Introductions and Preprations for Sarah & Matt's Big Day

Sarah & Matt first reached out to East Coast Soul in June of 2021. Our preparations for the big day began many weeks prior, with Sarah & Matt offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Sarah & Matt were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Gloucester and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Beauport Hotel 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

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 & Matt were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Sarah & Matt '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 often the case, East Coast Soul was asked to provide 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 performing 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 weddings, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Beauport Hotel Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional 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 tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's King ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Sarah & Matt to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their mother and father. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Matt and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to start 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 shows often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests relaxed and dancing 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 & Matt for having us at their beautiful May wedding at Beauport Hotel!