Beauport Hotel Wedding in Gloucester

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

Introductions and Preprations for Sarah & Matt's Big Day

Sarah & Matt initially got in touch with East Coast Soul in June of 2021. Our preparations for the big day began well ahead, with Sarah & Matt expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Sarah & Matt were incredibly helpful during 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. 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 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 interested in 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 approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, 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 providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend 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 celebrations, the band is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Beauport Hotel 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 couple's first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, 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 a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested 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 specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Matt and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to kick off the dance party 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 found this is a great way to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned into performing music 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!