The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited 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 day began months in advance, with Maya & Adam offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Groton, MA and took care of the 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 preparations 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 providing roughly 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 wonderful chance 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. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a majority of weddings, the band is asked to take care of 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 groom and bride's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity 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, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, 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 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 parents. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Adam and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing 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 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!