The Maine Boathouse Wedding in South Freeport, ME

East Coast Soul was grateful 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 preparations for the wedding day began months in advance, with Cara & Matthew offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Cara & Matthew were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to South Freeport, ME and moved swiftly through our standard 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

One aspect of our preparations 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 approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony took place.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to unwind after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening to. In this case, We provided a Guitar/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of weddings, the band is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This The Maine Boathouse Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The couple’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we changed gears to into the couple’s first dance.

The bride and groom's first dance is almost always 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 particular performance, we were requested to play the first dance number live, instead of performing it from a recording. Cara & Matthew danced to More Than Anyone by Gavin Degraw, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a quick break, East Coast Soul's Daptone ensemble circled back to the stage.

Dance Party

East Coast Soul dance performances often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, 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 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!