Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA

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

Preprations for Alison & Ruben's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Alison & Ruben sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Alison & Ruben were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding 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. 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

One aspect of our planning 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 listend to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of receptions, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. 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 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 particular performance, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part 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 play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Alison & Ruben to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, the bride and her father danced together. Ruben and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to start 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

our performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way 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 beginning of our set list. 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 Alison & Ruben for having us at their beautiful September wedding at Fairmount Park Horticulture Center!