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

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for Fairmount Park Horticulture Center weddings. We get a lot of questions about the logistics of loading in to any given venue. 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 big 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 providing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, 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 heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. 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 receptions, the band is asked to provide 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 couple’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Philadelphia International ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Alison & Ruben to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. 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 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 shows 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 Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. 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!