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 first reached out to East Coast Soul in February of 2016. Our groundwork for the big day began months in advance, with Yael & Richard offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Yael & Richard were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big 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

One aspect of our groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the big 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 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 approximately 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 often the case, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Gedney Farm Wedding was no different. The bridal party set the tone by dancing in to Celebrate by Kool & The Gang with everyone cheering them on.

The couple’s First Dance

The groom and bride's first dance is consistently 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 particular performance, we were requested to perform the first dance tune 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 finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Yael & Richard to spend a couple minutes 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 an amazing way to kick off the performance 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 discovered this is an excellent approach to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. 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!