Fairmount Park Horticulture Center Wedding in Philadelphia, PA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be brought 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 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 super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Philadelphia, PA and carried out our normal 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 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 great opportunity 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. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a majority of celebrations, we is asked to handle 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 couple’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is invariably one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were requested to perform the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, 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 spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father danced together. Ruben and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to kick off 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 shows 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 Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, 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!