The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited 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 day began well ahead, with Maya & Adam sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day 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. 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 groundwork 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 looking for 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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a blend 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 take care of 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 bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is traditionally one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were asked to play the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Maya & Adam to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor with their parents. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Adam and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a fantastic way to start 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 shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests relaxed and dancing 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 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!