Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited 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 offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Erin & Brendan were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Princeton, MA and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Harrington Farm 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 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 common, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Harrington Farm Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we changed gears to into the couple’s first dance.

The newly married couple'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 specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance song live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Erin & Brendan to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their father and mother. 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 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, 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!