Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

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

Preprations for Erin & Brendan's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Erin & Brendan expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Erin & Brendan were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Princeton, MA and began our standard load-in and sound check for Harrington Farm weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. 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 wedding day 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 providing approximately 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. 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 weddings, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Harrington Farm Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The groom and bride's first dance is invariably one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Erin & Brendan to spend a couple minutes in the center of the floor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father danced together. Brendan and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to kick off the performance 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 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 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!