The Maine Boathouse Wedding in South Freeport, ME

East Coast Soul was blessed to be asked to join Cara & Matthew for their stunning The Maine Boathouse Wedding in South Freeport, ME.

Preprations for Cara & Matthew's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding day began months in advance, with Cara & Matthew expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Cara & Matthew were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to South Freeport, ME and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for The Maine Boathouse 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

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, Cara & Matthew were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Cara & Matthew 's ceremony started at 4:00 pm on and . East Coast Soul prepared a a Guitar/Keyboard Duo 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 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 heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, We provided a Guitar/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This The Maine Boathouse Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were asked to perform the first dance number live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. Cara & Matthew danced to More Than Anyone by Gavin Degraw, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this part of the evening finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Daptone ensemble returned to the stage.

Dance Party

our dance performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved 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 Cara & Matthew for having us at their beautiful August wedding at The Maine Boathouse! And thank you to Leslie Swan for sharing these beautiful photos with us!