The Hildene Wedding in Manchester, VT

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

Preprations for Megan & Andrew's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Megan & Andrew expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Megan & Andrew were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and took care of the 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 often the case, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, We provided a Piano/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of celebrations, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This The Hildene Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

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

The groom and bride's first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity 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, instead of 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 wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's King ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

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

Dance Party

our shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 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!