The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in Groton, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be invited to join Lindsay & Jared for their stunning The Barn at Gibbet Hill Wedding in .

Preprations for Lindsay & Jared's Big Day

Our groundwork for the big day began months in advance, with Lindsay & Jared sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Lindsay & Jared were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Barn at Gibbet Hill 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 big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Lindsay & Jared were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Lindsay & Jared 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, 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 providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a majority of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This The Barn at Gibbet Hill 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 couple's first dance is almost always one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, instead of 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 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 Lindsay & Jared to share a brief moment in the center of the floor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Jared and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the performance 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 dance performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned into playing tunes 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 Lindsay & Jared for having us at their beautiful June wedding at The Barn at Gibbet Hill! And thank you to Lacey Gabrielle for sharing these beautiful photos with us!