Valley View Farm Wedding in Haydenville, MA

East Coast Soul was blessed to be invited 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 months in advance, with Erica & Matt offering a myriad of musical and logistical options with us for the big day (preparation is a key part of our process). Erica & Matt were happy to be a key part of this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the big day arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to and began our standard load-in and sound check 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

Part 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 looking for 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 asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a great opportunity for the bride and groom to unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We do our part by providing a variety 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 bulk of wedding celebrations, we is asked to provide MC services for the formal portions of the celebrations. This Valley View Farm Wedding was no different. However, there were actually no formal intros for this wedding.

The bride and groom’s First Dance

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

The newly married couple's first dance is almost always one of the most emotional parts of the big day. It's a chance for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this particular wedding, we were asked to perform the first dance tune live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After a super brief break, East Coast Soul's Soulsville ensemble returned 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 Erica & Matt to share a brief moment in the center of the floor with their mother and father. For this particular 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 kick off 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 often start with older material. We've discovered this is an excellent approach to get folks relaxed and dancing with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the outset of our performance. We then transitioned into playing tunes 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!