Private Residence Wedding in Underhill Center, VT

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Hayley & Brad for their stunning Private Residence Wedding in Underhill Center, VT.

Preprations for Hayley & Brad's Big Day

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

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Underhill Center, VT and carried out our normal load-in, set up, and sound check process for Private Residence 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 preparations involves outlining exactly what portions of the wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with. For this wedding in particular, Hayley & Brad were also looking for East Coast Soul to help out for their ceremony. Hayley & Brad '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 found their seats, 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 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 John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of wedding celebrations, the band is asked to handle MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Private Residence Wedding was no different. However, there were in fact 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 groom and bride's first dance is consistently one of the most meaningful parts of the wedding. It's an opportunity for the bride and groom to take a moment for themselves. For this specific wedding, we were requested to play the first dance tune live, as opposed to performing it from a recording. With this portion of the evening 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. This was a chance for the to join Hayley & Brad to spend a couple minutes in the middle of the dancefloor with their mother and father. For this specific wedding, the bride and her father danced together. Brad and his mother danced together as well. Parent dances are a fantastic 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 dance performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get everyone up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, 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 Hayley & Brad for having us at their beautiful July wedding at Private Residence! And thank you to Jenna Brisson for sharing these beautiful photos with us!