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 wedding day began months in advance, with Erin & Brendan offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Erin & Brendan were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check 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 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 performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, 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 do our part by providing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of wedding celebrations, 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 in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently 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 specific wedding, we were asked to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding 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 wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Erin & Brendan to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their mother and father. For this specific wedding, 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 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 commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned into performing music 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!