Hill Farm Inn Wedding in Sunderland, VT

East Coast Soul was blessed to be brought to join Sarah & Andrew for their stunning Hill Farm Inn Wedding in Sunderland, VT.

Preprations

Our groundwork for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Sarah & Andrew expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Sarah & Andrew were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Sunderland, VT and began our standard load in and sound check process for Hill Farm Inn. 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

Part of our groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day East Coast Soul will be involved with.

For this wedding in particular, we learned that Sarah & Andrew were also looking for East Coast Soul to provide ceremony music. In this case, Sarah & Andrew 's ceremony was held at Hill Farm Inn. After East Coast Soul provided roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony began. Specially, we provided a Soloist performance for the processional, bride’s entrance, recessional.

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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. In this case, we provided a and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of wedding celebrations, we is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Hill Farm Inn Wedding was no different. With introductions wrapped up, we changed gears to into the bride and groom’s first dance. The first dance is almost always one of the most emotional parts of the wedding day. It's a chance for the couple to take a moment for themselves. With this portion of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After resting briefly, East Coast Soul's King ensemble returned.

In many weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. This is a chance for the bride and groom to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their father and mother. In this case, the bride and her father danced together. The groom and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the performance portion of the evening. We generally ask for the attention of the guests to start. We then often ask them to join the couple and their parents on the dance floor, and then move directly in to the rest of the performance.

Our performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved into performing music by artists like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. 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 Sarah & Andrew for having us at their beautiful August wedding at Hill Farm Inn!