The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be asked to join Maya & Adam for their stunning The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA.

Preprations for Maya & Adam's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding began months in advance, with Maya & Adam expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Maya & Adam were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Groton, MA and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill 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, Maya & Adam were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Maya & Adam 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing approximately 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing 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 bulk of wedding celebrations, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we transitioned into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. 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 song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Maya & Adam to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their parents. For this particular performance, the bride and her father danced together. Adam and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great 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

East Coast Soul shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way 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 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 Maya & Adam for having us at their beautiful June wedding at The Barn at Gibbet Hill! And thank you to Linda Barry for sharing these beautiful photos with us!