Cliff House Maine Wedding in Ogunquit, ME

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Carlos & Patrick for their stunning Cliff House Maine Wedding in .

Preprations for Carlos & Patrick's Big Day

Our preparations for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Carlos & Patrick offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Carlos & Patrick were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Cliff House Maine 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 wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Carlos & Patrick were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Carlos & Patrick '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 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 contribute by providing a variety 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 receptions, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Cliff House Maine 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 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 wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were asked to play the first dance song live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned 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 Carlos & Patrick 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 shared a dance. Patrick and his mother shared a dance 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 shows often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, 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 Carlos & Patrick for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Cliff House Maine!