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

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Princeton, MA and took care of the normal 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

One aspect of our planning 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 performing roughly 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 relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part 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 receptions, we is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. 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 groom and bride's first dance is traditionally one of the most unforgettable parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were asked to play the first dance song live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, 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. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Erin & Brendan to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Brendan and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the dance party 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

our shows often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved into playing tunes by artists like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince 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!