The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

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

Preprations for Maya & Adam's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Maya & Adam offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Maya & Adam were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and took care of the 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

One aspect 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 performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute 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 lion's share of wedding celebrations, we is asked to handle 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 bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The groom and bride's first dance is almost always one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening complete, 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 play 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 mother and father. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Adam and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are an amazing 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned into playing tunes 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!