Topnotch Resort Wedding in Stowe, VT

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be invited to join Hailey & John for their stunning Topnotch Resort Wedding in .

Preprations for Hailey & John's Big Day

Our groundwork for the wedding day began well ahead, with Hailey & John expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding day (preparation is a key part of our process). Hailey & John 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 and moved swiftly through our standard load-in, set up, and sound check process for Topnotch Resort weddings. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 groundwork involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Hailey & John were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Hailey & John 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony took place.

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 unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing 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, the band is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Topnotch Resort Wedding 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 moved into into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is consistently 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 specific wedding, we were asked to perform the first dance number live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this portion 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.

Parent Dances

In a majority of wedding performances, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Hailey & John to share a brief moment in the center of the floor with their father and mother. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. John and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a fantastic 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 often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned 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 Hailey & John for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Topnotch Resort! And thank you to The Light and Color for sharing these beautiful photos with us!