The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful 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 groundwork for the wedding began well ahead, with Maya & Adam offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (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 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. Our process for loading in and setting up at any given venue is a big part of our preparation process. 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 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 approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened 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 majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

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

The couple'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 particular performance, we were requested to play the first dance song live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back 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 share a brief moment on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this particular performance, the bride and her father danced together. Adam and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to kick off 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 shows often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, 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!