Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be asked to join Erin & Brendan for their stunning Harrington Farm Wedding in .

Preprations for Erin & Brendan's Big Day

Our groundwork for the big day began well ahead, with Erin & Brendan expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Erin & Brendan were incredibly helpful during 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 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 groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the big 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the heightened 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of celebrations, we 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 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 groom and bride's first dance is traditionally one of the most meaningful parts of the big day. 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 number live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding finished, 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 many 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 middle of the dancefloor with their parents. 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 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 performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned into performing music 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!