The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed 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 big day began months in advance, with Maya & Adam expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (preparation is a key part of our process). Maya & Adam were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big 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. 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

One aspect of our groundwork 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 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 approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, East Coast Soul was requested to perform 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 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 bulk of wedding celebrations, we 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 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 bride and groom's first dance is traditionally one of the most meaningful parts of the big 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 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 a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Maya & Adam to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor with their mother and father. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Adam and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a fantastic 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 often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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!