Beauport Hotel Wedding in

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

Introductions and Preprations for Sarah & Matt's Big Day

Sarah & Matt first reached out to East Coast Soul in June of 2021. Our planning for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Sarah & Matt offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Sarah & Matt were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to 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 planning 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 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of weddings, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Beauport Hotel Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The couple's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were asked to perform the first dance number live, as opposed to performing 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, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Matt to share a brief moment in the center of the floor 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 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 everyone up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, 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 Sarah & Matt for having us at their beautiful May wedding at Beauport Hotel!