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 began many weeks prior, with Erin & Brendan sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Erin & Brendan were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Harrington Farm weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. 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 groundwork 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 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 relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute 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 Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share 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 couple's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were asked to perform the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening 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, 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 in the center of the 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 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

East Coast Soul performances 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 Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved 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!