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 planning for the big day began many weeks prior, with Maya & Adam sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the big day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big 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. 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 planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the big 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 providing 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 unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul 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 groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The groom and bride's first dance is invariably one of the most meaningful parts of the big day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were requested to perform the first dance tune live, instead of performing 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 returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked 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 center of the floor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, 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 dance performances commonly kick off with vintage 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 Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, 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!