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 preparations for the wedding day began well ahead, with Alison & Ruben expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Alison & Ruben were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process 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

One aspect of our preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing 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 majority of receptions, we 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 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 bride and groom's first dance is invariably one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were requested to play the first dance number live, as opposed to performing 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, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Alison & Ruben to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor with their mother and father. For this particular performance, the bride and her father shared a dance. Ruben and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a fantastic way to kick off 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

East Coast Soul shows often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, 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!