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 .

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 take our preparation process extremely seriously). Maya & Adam were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check 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 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 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 weddings, the band 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 bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The newly married 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 specific wedding, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform 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 specific wedding, 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 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 performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. 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!