Gedney Farm Wedding in New Marlborough, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought to join Yael & Richard for their stunning Gedney Farm Wedding in New Marlborough, MA.

Introductions and Preprations for Yael & Richard's Big Day

Yael & Richard first got in touch with us in February of 2016. Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Yael & Richard sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Yael & Richard were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to New Marlborough, MA and began our standard load-in and sound check for Gedney Farm 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. Gendey Farm's performance space is a beautiful, spacious old barn that provides a wonderful two story venue for any wedding. Decorated with simple white lights, it truly is a sight to behold.

Ceremony

Part of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Yael & Richard were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Yael & Richard 's ceremony started at 6:30 pm on and took place in the tent at the rear of the venue at Gedney Farm. East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Guitar 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. Yael & Richard provided a beautiful collection of songs for us to perform for the ceremony:

• Processional: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
• “Bride’s Entrance”: Theme From The Princess Bride
• Recessional: Signed Sealed Delivered

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity 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, cocktail hour took place bottom floor of barn/outdoor patio. We provided a Piano/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of receptions, the band is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Gedney Farm Wedding was no different. The guests of honor crushed it by dancing in to Celebrate by Kool & The Gang with the wedding guests cheering them in.

The couple’s First Dance

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful 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 asked to play the first dance number live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. Yael & Richard danced to Hakuna Matata from the Lion King, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Yael & Richard to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their father and mother. For this wedding in particular, Yael and her father danced to I Feel A Change Comin’ On by Bob Dylan. Richard and his mother shared a dance to You'll Be In My Heart by Phil Collins. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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

East Coast Soul shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved into performing music 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 Yael & Richard for having us at their beautiful November wedding at Gedney Farm!