Beauport Hotel Wedding in Gloucester

East Coast Soul was grateful 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 first got in touch with us in June of 2021. Our preparations for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Sarah & Matt expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Sarah & Matt were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Gloucester and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Beauport Hotel weddings. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 wedding 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 providing 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to handle 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 moved into into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is traditionally one of the most emotional parts of the wedding day. 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, 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 King ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Matt to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor with their parents. 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 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 dance 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, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned into performing music 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 Sarah & Matt for having us at their beautiful May wedding at Beauport Hotel!