Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA

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

Preprations for Alison & Ruben's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding began months in advance, with Alison & Ruben expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences 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 moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Fairmount Park Horticulture Center weddings. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 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 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 performing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a blend 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 bulk of wedding celebrations, we is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Fairmount Park Horticulture Center 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 moved into into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently 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 play the first dance number live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Philadelphia International ensemble circled back 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 spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father shared a dance. Ruben and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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

our performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, 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!