Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be asked 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 offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Erin & Brendan were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Princeton, MA and began our standard load-in and sound check 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

Part 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 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to listend 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 majority of weddings, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Harrington Farm 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 headed into into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were asked to perform the first dance tune live, instead of performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening finished, 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 a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Erin & Brendan to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father shared a dance. Brendan and his mother shared a dance 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

East Coast Soul shows often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests 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 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!