Migis Lodge Wedding in South Casco, ME

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited to join Avery & Jack for their stunning Migis Lodge Wedding in South Casco, ME.

Preprations for Avery & Jack's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Avery & Jack sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Avery & Jack were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to South Casco, ME and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Migis Lodge 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

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Avery & Jack were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Avery & Jack 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

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

Reception

In a lion's share of receptions, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This Migis Lodge Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The groom and bride’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is traditionally 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 wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance number live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Avery & Jack to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Jack and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to kick off the dance party portion of the evening. We often ask guests to join the couple and their parents on the dance floor, and then move directly in to the rest of the performance.

Dance Party

East Coast Soul performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then transitioned 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 Avery & Jack for having us at their beautiful May wedding at Migis Lodge! And thank you to Natalya Desena for sharing these beautiful photos with us!