Harrington Farm Wedding in Princeton, MA

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

Preprations for Erin & Brendan's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding day began months in advance, with Erin & Brendan sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Erin & Brendan were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal 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 planning 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 interested in 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 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 providing 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 bulk of wedding 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 in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is invariably 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 particular performance, we were requested to perform the first dance song live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of 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 on the dance floor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, the bride and her father shared a dance. Brendan and his mother shared a dance 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 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 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!