Valley View Farm Wedding in Haydenville, MA

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

Preprations for Erica & Matt's Big Day

Our preparations for the big day began well ahead, with Erica & Matt sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the big day (we take our preparation process extremely seriously). Erica & Matt were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and incredibly helpful throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and moved swiftly through our standard 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 preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the big day 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 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 great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by providing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy listening 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 lion's share of receptions, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the wedding celebrations. This Valley View Farm Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

With no introductions to take care of, we headed into into the bride and groom’s first dance.

The groom and bride's first dance is almost always one of the most unforgettable parts of the big day. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to perform the first dance song live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the wedding complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble circled back to the stage.

Parent Dances

In many weddings, East Coast Soul is often requested to play the couple's parent dances. The parents dances were an opportunity for the to join Erica & Matt to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their mother and father. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father shared a dance. Matt and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the dance party 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 commonly kick off with vintage material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get guests up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. 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 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 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!