Mad River Barn Wedding in Waitsfield, VT

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited to join Ally & Ellis for their stunning Mad River Barn Wedding in Waitsfield, VT.

Preprations

Our preparations for the wedding day began well ahead, with Ally & Ellis sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Ally & Ellis were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Waitsfield, VT and began our standard load in and sound check process for Mad River Barn. 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 preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day East Coast Soul will be involved with.

For this wedding in particular, we learned that Ally & Ellis were also looking for East Coast Soul to provide ceremony music. In this case, Ally & Ellis 's ceremony took place at Mad River Barn. After East Coast Soul performed approximately 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 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 heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, we provided a and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a majority of weddings, we is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Mad River Barn Wedding was no different. With introductions wrapped up, we headed into into the couple’s first dance. The first dance is traditionally one of the most unforgettable 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 Stax 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 Ally & Ellis for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Mad River Barn! And thank you to Leslie Swan for sharing these beautiful photos with us!