River Road Farm Wedding in Manchester, VT

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

Preprations for Maggie & Jessie's Big Day

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

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Manchester, VT and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for River Road Farm 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

One aspect of our groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day 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 providing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

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 unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute 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 Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of weddings, 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 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 couple's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the big day. 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 performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Atlantic ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Maggie & Jessie to share a brief moment on the dance floor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Jessie and his mother shared a dance 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

our shows commonly kick off with vintage material. We've found this is a great way to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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!