Gedney Farm Wedding in New Marlborough, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be brought to join Yael & Richard for their stunning Gedney Farm Wedding in .

Introductions and Preprations for Yael & Richard's Big Day

Yael & Richard initially got in touch with East Coast Soul in February of 2016. Our preparations for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Yael & Richard expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Yael & Richard were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for Gedney Farm 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. 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 preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day 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 was held 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 performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, 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 common, 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 blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Gedney Farm Wedding was no different. The guests of honor danced in to the sounds of Celebrate by Kool & The Gang with everyone cheering them on.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. Yael & Richard danced to Hakuna Matata from the Lion King, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned 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 Yael & Richard to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their parents. For this particular performance, 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 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 performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks 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 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!