Willowdale Estate Wedding in Ipswich, MA

East Coast Soul was fortunate to be brought to join Jennifer & Mike for their stunning Willowdale Estate Wedding in Ipswich, MA.

Preprations

Our preparations for the wedding began well ahead, with Jennifer & Mike sharing their music and logistical preferences and vision with us for the wedding (preparation is a key part of our process). Jennifer & Mike were heavily involved in this advanced planning and a huge asset throughout.

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to Ipswich, MA and began our standard load in and sound check process for Willowdale Estate. We're often asked about our process for loading in and sound checking at various venues. 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 wedding East Coast Soul will be involved with.

For this wedding in particular, we learned that Jennifer & Mike were also looking for East Coast Soul to provide ceremony music. In this case, Jennifer & Mike 's ceremony took place at Willowdale Estate. Once East Coast Soul performed roughly 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests arrived, the ceremony began. Specially, we provided a Soloist performance for the processional, bride’s entrance, recessional.

Cocktail Hour

As is common, East Coast Soul was asked to provide cocktail hour music. Cocktail hour is a wonderful chance for the bride and groom to relax 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 and featured music by artists such as John Coltrane, Miles Davies, and more.

Reception

In a lion's share of celebrations, we is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the weddings. This Willowdale Estate Wedding was no different. With introductions complete, we transitioned into the bride and groom’s first dance. The first dance is consistently one of the most emotional parts of the wedding. It's a chance for the couple to take a moment for themselves. With this portion of the evening complete, the guests and vendors took a break for dinner. After resting briefly, East Coast Soul's Stax ensemble returned.

In many weddings, we are also asked to perform the couple's parent dances. This is a chance for the bride and groom to spend a couple minutes on the dance floor with their father and mother. In this case, the bride and her father danced together. The groom and his mother shared a dance as well. Parent dances are a great way to start the performance portion of the evening. We generally ask for the attention of the guests to start. We then often ask them to join the couple and their parents on the dance floor, and then move directly in to the rest of the performance.

Our performances often start with older material. We've found this is a great way to get folks up on the dance floor with songs they're familiar with. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam and Dave, The Temptations, Earth Wind & Fire, and more dominated the beginning of our set list. We then moved into performing music by artists like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. 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 Jennifer & Mike for having us at their beautiful March wedding at Willowdale Estate! And thank you to Leona Campbell Photo for sharing these beautiful photos with us!