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 .

Preprations for Maya & Adam's Big Day

Our groundwork 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 always leave an excess of time for preparation). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill weddings. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax 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 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 groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is traditionally one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening 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 a majority of weddings, we are also asked to perform 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 father and mother. For this wedding in particular, 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

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 know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved into performing music 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!