The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate 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 preparations for the wedding began months in advance, 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 Groton, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill weddings. We get a lot of questions about the logistics of loading in to any given venue. 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 preparations 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 heightened 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

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

The couple's first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance song live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Maya & Adam to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their parents. 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 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone relaxed and dancing 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 moved 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!