Beauport Hotel Wedding in Gloucester

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited 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 wedding began months in advance, with Sarah & Matt offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Sarah & Matt were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Gloucester and took care of the normal 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 wedding 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 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 do our part by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening 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 lion's share of wedding celebrations, the band is asked to provide 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 groom and bride's first dance is consistently one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance number live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's King ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Sarah & Matt to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Matt and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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 dance performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get everyone relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, 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!