Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be asked to join Alison & Ruben for their stunning Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA.

Preprations for Alison & Ruben's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Alison & Ruben offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Alison & Ruben were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Philadelphia, PA and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Fairmount Park Horticulture Center 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 groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Alison & Ruben were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Alison & Ruben 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, 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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of weddings, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is invariably one of the most meaningful 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 tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Philadelphia International ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Alison & Ruben 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. Ruben and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to kick off the performance 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

East Coast Soul dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved 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 Alison & Ruben for having us at their beautiful September wedding at Fairmount Park Horticulture Center!