Valley View Farm Wedding in Haydenville, MA

East Coast Soul was grateful to be brought to join Erica & Matt for their stunning Valley View Farm Wedding in .

Preprations for Erica & Matt's Big Day

Our planning for the wedding began many weeks prior, with Erica & Matt expressing a variety of musical and logistical preferences with us for the wedding (we always leave an excess of time for preparation). Erica & Matt were heavily involved in this advanced planning and super helpful throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Valley View Farm 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.

Ceremony

One aspect of our planning involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Erica & Matt were also interested in East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Erica & Matt 's ceremony . East Coast Soul prepared a a Solo Piano performance and Single Mic for speeches. Following East Coast Soul providing approximately 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 wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax after the intense emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to listend to. In this case, We provided a Playback and and featured music by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and more.

Reception

In a majority of celebrations, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Valley View Farm 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 changed gears to into the groom and bride’s first dance.

The couple's first dance is invariably one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this wedding in particular, we were asked to play the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this part of the wedding finished, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After as short a break as possible, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble returned to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, we are also asked to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Erica & Matt to share a brief moment in the middle of the dancefloor with their mother and father. For this wedding in particular, the bride and her father shared a dance. Matt and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are an amazing 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

our performances commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they know and love. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. 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 Erica & Matt for having us at their beautiful August wedding at Valley View Farm! And thank you to Novella Photography for sharing these beautiful photos with us!