Shady Lane Farm in New Gloucester, ME

East Coast Soul was grateful to be brought to join Abby & Joel in .

Preprations for Abby & Joel's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Abby & Joel sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Abby & Joel were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Shady Lane Farm weddings. Our process for loading in and setting up at any given venue is a big part of our preparation process. 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, Abby & Joel were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Abby & Joel '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 arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, 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 intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to listend 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 wedding celebrations, we is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Shady Lane Farm 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 transitioned into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The newly married couple's first dance is invariably one of the most unforgettable parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were asked to perform the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Abby & Joel 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. Joel and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are an amazing way to start 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 discovered this is an excellent approach 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 moved 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 Abby & Joel for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Shady Lane Farm! And thank you to Lensy Michelle Photo for sharing these beautiful photos with us!