River Road Farm Wedding in Manchester, VT

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be asked to join Maggie & Jessie for their stunning River Road Farm Wedding in Manchester, VT.

Preprations for Maggie & Jessie's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began well ahead, with Maggie & Jessie offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Maggie & Jessie were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Manchester, VT and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for River Road Farm weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. 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 planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Maggie & Jessie were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Maggie & Jessie 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

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 performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of celebrations, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This River Road Farm 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 changed gears to into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The groom and bride'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 wedding in particular, we were asked to play the first dance song live, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this part of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Maggie & Jessie to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their father and mother. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father shared a dance. Jessie and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a fantastic way to kick off the main dance performance. 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

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 know and love. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. 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 Maggie & Jessie for having us at their beautiful June wedding at River Road Farm! And thank you to Undressed Moments for sharing these beautiful photos with us!