Topnotch Resort Wedding in Stowe, VT

East Coast Soul was blessed to be brought to join Ellen & Peter for their stunning Topnotch Resort Wedding in .

Preprations for Ellen & Peter's Big Day

Our planning for the big day began months in advance, with Ellen & Peter sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Ellen & Peter were incredibly helpful during this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Topnotch Resort 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 planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Ellen & Peter were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Ellen & Peter 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul performing approximately 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 enjoy. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a majority of receptions, East Coast Soul is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. 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 changed gears to into the couple’s first dance.

The newly married couple's first dance is consistently 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 performance, we were requested to play the first dance number live, instead of playing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's King ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In a majority of weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to perform the couple's parent dances. This was a chance for the to join Ellen & Peter to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their father and mother. For this particular performance, the bride and her father shared a dance. Peter and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great 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 shows often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they know and love. Artists like Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then moved into performing music 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 Ellen & Peter for having us at their beautiful September wedding at Topnotch Resort! And thank you to Kelsey Regan for sharing these beautiful photos with us!