Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought to join Erin & Brendan for their stunning Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA.

Preprations for Erin & Brendan's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began months in advance, with Erin & Brendan sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Erin & Brendan were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Princeton, MA and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Harrington Farm 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

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Erin & Brendan were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Erin & Brendan 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing roughly 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 contribute by performing 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 lion's share of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Harrington Farm 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 changed gears to into the bride and groom’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is consistently one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance tune live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Erin & Brendan to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their parents. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Brendan and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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

our shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned into playing tunes 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 Erin & Brendan for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Harrington Farm! And thank you to Audrey Cutler for sharing these beautiful photos with us!