The Hildene Wedding in Manchester, VT

East Coast Soul was grateful to be brought to join Megan & Andrew for their stunning The Hildene Wedding in .

Preprations for Megan & Andrew's Big Day

Our groundwork for the big day began well ahead, with Megan & Andrew expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Megan & Andrew were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Hildene 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

In this case, East Coast Soul was not involved with couple's ceremony, with those arrangements having already been taken care of.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. In this case, We provided a Piano/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of celebrations, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This The Hildene Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. Megan & Andrew danced to You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's King ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

The Parent Dance was combined, and they song chosen was Forever Young by Bob Dylan.

Dance Party

East Coast Soul performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved 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 Megan & Andrew for having us at their beautiful July wedding at The Hildene! And thank you to Jenelle Kappe for sharing these beautiful photos with us!