Thompson Island Wedding in Boston, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Amanda & Sean for their stunning Thompson Island Wedding in Boston, MA.

Introductions and Preprations for Amanda & Sean's Big Day

Amanda & Sean first reached out to East Coast Soul in July of 2017. The groom had actually seen us at a number of his friend's weddings, and was excited to reach out once he finally got engaged Our groundwork for the wedding day began many weeks prior, with Amanda & Sean offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Amanda & Sean were heavily involved in this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the wedding day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Boston, MA and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Thompson Island 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. Thompson Island in particular presents some unique challenges for wedding performances, due to the fact that it is, of course, an island! Fortunately, we have experience with island weddings of all types, and the Thompson Island staff is incredibly helpful during the process.

Ceremony

One aspect of our groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Amanda & Sean were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Amanda & Sean 's ceremony started at 4:00 pm on and took place lawn in front of the dock at Thompson Island. East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Guitar 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. Amanda & Sean provided a beautiful collection of songs for us to perform for the ceremony:

• Processional (including Bride’s Entrance): Eric Church – Love Your Love The Most
• Recessional: Stevie Wonder – Signed Sealed Delivered

Cocktail Hour

As is often the case, East Coast Soul was requested to perform cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by performing a blend of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, cocktail hour took place at a covered gazebo-like structure adjacent to the ceremony location. We provided a Piano/Sax Duo and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a bulk of wedding celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Thompson Island 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 newly married couple's first dance is traditionally one of the most emotional parts of the wedding day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular performance, we were requested to play the first dance song from a recording, as opposed to performing it live. Amanda & Sean danced to Chris Stapleton - Millionaire, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. With this part of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble circled back to the stage.

Dance Party

As part of our preparation process, we like to get a sense of what the bride and groom are excited to hear. Amanda & Sean Were a huge help here, giving us a ton of great input. The bride and groom requested tunes like Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton, and a bunch of Michael Jackson material such as Billie Jean, PYT, The Way You Make Me Feel, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. We also hit on I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston, You Make My Dreams by Hall and Oats, and nailed special requests for My Girl, Into The Mystic. We were also asked to cap off the night with some Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.

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 Amanda & Sean for having us at their beautiful June wedding at Thompson Island! And thank you to Emily Delamater for sharing these beautiful photos with us!