Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA

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

Preprations for Alison & Ruben's Big Day

Our preparations for the wedding began well ahead, with Alison & Ruben sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Alison & Ruben were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for Fairmount Park Horticulture Center weddings. Our process for loading in and setting up at any given venue is a big part of our preparation process. 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, Alison & Ruben were also looking for 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 roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, 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 unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part 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 Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact 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 couple's first dance is almost always one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were requested to perform the first dance song live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening complete, 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, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Alison & Ruben to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father danced together. Ruben 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 everyone up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 Alison & Ruben for having us at their beautiful September wedding at Fairmount Park Horticulture Center!