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 planning for the wedding day began months in advance, with Maya & Adam expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Groton, MA and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill weddings. Our process for loading in and setting up at any given venue is a big part of our preparation process. 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

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day 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 performing roughly 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of wedding celebrations, we 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 actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always one of the most emotional 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 requested to perform the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part 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 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 share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, the bride and her father shared a dance. Adam and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great 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 often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 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!