York Harbor Reading Room Wedding in York, ME

East Coast Soul was grateful to be invited to join Lizzie & Bobby for their stunning York Harbor Reading Room Wedding in York, ME.

Preprations

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

Once the wedding arrived, East Coast Soul traveled to York, ME and began our standard load in and sound check process for York Harbor Reading Room. 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 Lizzie & Bobby were also looking for East Coast Soul to provide ceremony music. In this case, Lizzie & Bobby 's ceremony was held at York Harbor Reading Room. After East Coast Soul performed approximately 30 minutes of “prelude” music as guests found their seats, the ceremony commenced. Specially, we provided a Soloist performance for the processional, bride’s entrance, recessional.

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 unwind after the heightened emotions of the ceremony. We contribute by performing a variety of relaxed music for guests to enjoy. In this case, we provided a and featured music by artists such as Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and more.

Reception

In a majority of celebrations, East Coast Soul is asked to take care of MC services for the formal portions of the receptions. This York Harbor Reading Room Wedding was no different. With introductions taken care of, we changed gears to into the couple’s first dance. The first dance is invariably one of the most meaningful 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 King 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 Lizzie & Bobby for having us at their beautiful September wedding at York Harbor Reading Room!