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 big day began months in advance, with Hailey & John offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Hailey & John were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and took care of the normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Topnotch Resort weddings. Being prepared for load-in and set-up at any given venue is a critical part of our workflow. 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 big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Hailey & John were also interested in 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 providing 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 relax after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute 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 celebrations, we is asked to handle 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 couple’s First Dance

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

The bride and groom's first dance is traditionally one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's an opportunity 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, as opposed to playing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening 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 perform the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Hailey & John to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular wedding, the bride and her father danced together. John and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the main dance performance. 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

our performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved into playing tunes 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!