The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought 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 many weeks prior, with Maya & Adam expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Maya & Adam were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Groton, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill 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.

Ceremony

Part 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 arrived, the ceremony took place.

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, 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, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were requested to play the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, 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 many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Maya & Adam to share a brief moment in the center of the floor with their mother and father. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Adam and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a fantastic way to start 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

our dance performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone 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!