The Hildene Wedding in Manchester, VT

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

Preprations for Megan & Andrew's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding began well ahead, with Megan & Andrew offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Megan & Andrew were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check for The Hildene weddings. We get a lot of questions about the logistics of loading in to any given venue. 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 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 contribute by providing 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 Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of celebrations, the band is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This The Hildene 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 transitioned into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance number 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 part of the wedding 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. 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!