Ep 32 • What No One Tells You About Wedding Venues with Brick & Mortar

Transcript:

[00:00:00]

[00:00:55] Alison: Welcome everyone to Weddings Unscripted. I’m your host Allison, and today we are missing Alex. She is dealing with some key stuff for a wedding this weekend and wish her luck. I’m actually going to be assisting her for a turn of change. Normally she’s helping me on weddings, so now I get to pay her back.

[00:01:16] Alison: But we have two amazing hosts here today. We have Sarah Hurt and Jenna Mack, and we’re gonna be talking about venues and all of the things that go into that. And as everyone knows, and probably annoyed by now, I used to work at a venue. So this will be very close to my heart, but I didn’t have to deal with all of the things that you guys have to deal with that you’re going to share.

[00:01:39] Alison: But that is opening a venue, getting a venue ready. I was already at an existing venue and just working the sales and events and stuff like that. So we’re gonna start with, I’d love to introduce Sarah Hurt. You’re the owner and founder of Brick and Mortar. Tell us a little about yourself and thank you for joining us.

[00:01:57] Sarah: Yeah, my name is Sarah Hurt, and I am the owner and founder of Brick and Mortar venues. We have over 10 venues in the DC area, and we have varying degrees of how we manage those venues. Some are full management where we are, soup to nuts. We take in all the leads, we do the walkthroughs with the clients, and we do the contracting and we oversee everything.

[00:02:25] Sarah: Some are more kind of partnerships where, it’s like a museum or a gallery or something like that, where a lot of the leads come through those avenues. And then we take it from there. And some are kind of like referral services where we send people to a venue that might work for them, that we don’t necessarily manage ourselves.

[00:02:45] Sarah: And we have also built several venues, like from the ground up where we have created the spaces, and done the full construction and everything. So that’s who we are, and we really focus on the dc specifically and the DC surrounding area a little bit, but mostly in dc.

[00:03:03] Alison: Wow, that’s amazing. I can’t wait to hear more about starting a venue in construction from scratch and getting to like perfectly build everything that you can imagine event space needing. Because I’ve even been to venues where they’re like, oh, we wish we had this, this is what we’ve been given.

[00:03:20] Alison: So I can’t wait to hear about that. But how long ago did you start your company and why did you feel the need to start that?

[00:03:26] Sarah: So I have been working in venues since probably 2008. So it’s been almost 20 years. And my first job was actually working with Jenna at Carnegie Library. It used to be called the Historical Society of Washington, dc and we all know if we know that venue, we know that it’s changed hands over time.

[00:03:46] Sarah: But I went to grad school at GW for event management and then found basically that, venues were my thing. I love to see the planners come in and create their creations. And I love to create the space for those events to happen. And I think that, working at Carnegie Library, working at the Mellon Auditorium.

[00:04:07] Sarah: And that kind of created the vision like I saw the need for larger spaces in DC was essentially kind of drove me to create the showroom, which it can hold up to 800 people. There are very few venues in DC that can seat over 200 people and have 800 people standing.

[00:04:26] Sarah: So it was this gap in the industry. Unless you were gonna go to a larger you know, Smithsonian, but at that time they weren’t doing social events and it was 2017, so that’s when I worked on opening the showroom. And the goal was to create a space that could accommodate multi-day events. Like the melon could but in a central location where people could do, really creative things where we had the space set up for events specifically where there were rigging points, there was power, there was like a catering space. There were all of those things.

[00:05:02] Sarah: So that was our goal at the beginning, and then we expanded out from there.

[00:05:06] Alison: That’s amazing and we definitely wanna get into introducing Jenna shortly, but just so people are listening that might not be familiar with some of the spaces she mentioned. Sarah runs a very beautiful space, it’s industrial kind of looking. It has like raw cement floors.

[00:05:21] Alison: You can see all the ducting in the ceiling and stuff like that called the showroom, and it’s near 14th Street, if I’m remembering correctly. So kind of right down in middle of downtown DC and I’ve personally worked there before and with Sarah, and it was a great event. We did this wedding, it was a jungle disco theme. So if someone was to like just walk into the rainforest and stumble across ruins and people were having like this crazy raver, that’s how she wanted her wedding to feel. And it was a lot of shiny disco balls and all that fun stuff.

[00:05:54] Alison: But let’s introduce Jenna. So since you had mentioned you used to work with Jenna, you now get to work with Jenna again. So Jenna, let’s talk about your history. You’ve been in the industry for how many years now and how have you gotten to this point where you’re now collaborating with Sarah?

[00:06:10] Alison: And can you tell us your role and how you got into this?

[00:06:13] Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. So I am Jenna Mack and I have been doing events for 30 years now. So I started out in the nineties right out of school working for DMCs. And I think even from the beginning, what I saw on the event planning side, which is what a lot of people feel when they work for other planners is, wow, I’m doing a lot of work and I’m not really reaping the rewards of that.

[00:06:41] Jenna: I wanna start my own company. But I had no idea where that would lead me is to managing one of the largest venues in dc. So I left the DMC I was working for, I started my own event consulting company called Event Emissary, and then a couple miracles happened. One of my friends who worked for a caterer mentioned that the melon was reopening.

[00:07:04] Jenna: I had done an event there in 1996 and it was beautiful, but very dark. And so I took my resume and I sent it to some administrative person with the government and said, Hey, I wanna manage your venue. And that translated into a call a couple months later with a contract officer, which means that within six months of starting my company, I was managing the Mellon Auditorium and it was one of the greatest experiences ever, ’cause it showed me a whole different side of things, but it also brought me a whole new respect for venue managers and what they do, because it’s not as simple as just unlocking a door. You are responsible for protecting a building. And, as I moved forward, I managed the National Aquarium in DC If anyone remembers that, it was in the basement of a government building. It was horrible. And I think I lasted less than a year before I fired the client. And then along came HSW, it’s the Carnegie Library where I got to meet Sarah, who was absolutely amazing ’cause I had the melon, I had enough on my plate and I needed someone over there. And I met Sarah, hired her right away.

[00:08:20] Jenna: And the fun stories she could tell you of the events that took place there, or the fact that we would be paying the electric bill at that venue in order to keep it alive. And as time went on that venue went back to the city and Sarah came over to the Mellon and we worked incredibly well together.

[00:08:38] Jenna: And then Sarah went to move on to create the showroom. And I continued on at the Mellon until COVID and COVID really took everything that I had built for almost 20 years at that point and just took it away. But Sarah and I kept talking and as I started to rebuild, what became very apparent is that Sarah and Brick and Mortar had an absolute vision on how to create venues, make them accessible to people, make them each venue kind of fits specific needs or multiple needs. And what also was clear is that Sarah might need some help. And we decided to collaborate on a couple of venues and I put myself forward and said, Sarah, listen, whatever you need, like I wanna work with you. And that’s how we came to paige house, which is this amazing venue on 16th Street that is within the brick and mortar portfolio and that I am operating for her. And we just launched two months ago.

[00:09:41] Alison: Congratulations. That’s so exciting, and in prep for this, podcast, Jenna and I had a really long phone call and reconnecting ‘ cause we actually worked together a very long time ago at the Mellon Auditorium, you know, if you’re not in the DC area, you’ve heard us talk this multiple times. And we reconnected recently in prep for this and I got to see some photos and it’s beautiful. It’s this historical quaint little would you say, manner house.

[00:10:05] Jenna: I call it a house because it’s on 16th Street and it looks like that, but it is a great multi-room space that does not have a real equivalent in the city, both because of the many rooms, the sizes, the outdoor space, as well as the affordability, which is thanks to Sarah.

[00:10:22] Sarah: And it has a beautiful garden a courtyard that you can tend. So it has like multiple spaces for that work. Especially for social events, so you can move your guests from one space to another where especially for something like a wedding where you could have your ceremony in the garden, you can have like cocktail reception in the courtyard, and then you can have, you know, your seated dinner in the ballroom.

[00:10:44] Sarah: And so it’s a great space where you can have these different moving pieces that a space like the showroom, which again is like my, you know, heart and soul, is a huge, massive open space. Not that you can’t divide it up, but it is more challenging to move clients from one space to another in a large open space than it is in a space like paige house.

[00:11:06] Alison: Yeah. ’cause when we did a wedding at the showroom a couple years ago, it was a lot of draping and using draping strategically to map out the room to create a space for cocktail hour. How are we flipping the ceremony? Where are guests moving so that they do not see the behind the scenes and break that movie magic appeal.

[00:11:25] Alison: And since you bring all of this up, we definitely will get more into how you guys will be promoting this new space that you have, is it currently open for sales? Like, do you have a wedding booked there yet?

[00:11:39] Jenna: We’ve been making a huge marketing push recently. We have hosted one event. It was a 50th birthday party. It was absolutely gorgeous. And this week we’ve really seen an uptick in inquiries, which is wonderful. And I think that the marketing efforts that we’ve made are starting to pay off.

[00:11:58] Sarah: And just for reference, the spaces at the intersection of Corcoran and 16th Street, so it’s just north of DuPont Circle. It’s really conveniently located. We can do weekday, events, like small events like a law firm or a nonprofit or, things like that. It is in a fabulous location, and the venue itself is beautiful. It’s a historic mansion,

[00:12:22] Alison: And when you’re thinking about opening a new space and stuff like that, are you behind the scenes thinking about, okay, what hotels are in the area, and stuff, or is that kind of an afterthought? obviously as the venue, in the middle of DC it’s a little bit easier ’cause there’s usually hotels everywhere.

[00:12:37] Alison: I think only a few spots where planners run into where it’s like, all right, the nearest hotel, that would be great for getting ready and the photos that clients want in their bridal suites and wedding suites. That’s 30 minutes away. And that’s like when people get married at the cathedral.

[00:12:53] Alison: Like, there’s no hotels in that immediate area. But otherwise I think it’s pretty easy to be near at least one or two hotels. So do you think about that in advance?

[00:13:03] Sarah: For the most part, our venues are located in central areas, so it’s what venues actually make sense to add to our portfolio, right? So when we’re looking at them, we’re looking at what is the surrounding area? How many people can this venue fit? What is this area like? Is it up and coming? Even what restaurants are around there? What is the scene wherever that space is located. And sometimes it makes sense for us and sometimes it doesn’t.

[00:13:31] Sarah: You know, trying to get out to certain areas, knowing DC traffic, it might make more sense to have it as a partner venue rather than as a full service venue run by us. Whereas the downtown metro accessible, I would say easy of access.

[00:13:49] Sarah: A lot of our clients don’t necessarily come from dc they come from like the DMV area. So we have to think about, where would people wanna go? Where would they be able to park? Where would they be able to like, get on a metro and get off and go to one of our venues?

[00:14:03] Sarah: Even how is it loading gonna go? Where can they load in? Is there a loading dock? All of that stuff kind of factors into how we analyze whether or not a space is a viable space.

[00:14:15] Alison: And that goes to show a small smidge of everything that a venue then has to deal with. ’cause we’re just talking about you thinking about purchasing a space potentially, or should we build here or something like that, or should we renovate? So it just ends up being so much work and so much things that you have to consider.

[00:14:33] Alison: And because you’re thinking of downtown, you’re automatically near hotels and stuff like that. When it comes to the Paige House you were saying in your last kind of statement to partner or to outright own as brick and mortar. So what is paige House? Is that a partnership or is that an own?

[00:14:53] Sarah: It is a full service management agreement. So we manage all of their events top to bottom. And I’ll let Jenna talk more about it.

[00:15:01] Jenna: Yeah, the great thing that kind of brick and mortar has been able to do, is to have these different categories. So when you’re building a venue like the showroom, you’re able to take into account all of the things you were discussing the hotels, the location, all of the pieces of the pie and build it for the clients.

[00:15:20] Jenna: And then there are opportunities for a partnership or a licensing agreement like paige house, where it already exists to a point, now in this case, not as a venue previously, but you don’t need to be as picky about certain parts, like what hotels are around. When Sarah brought me in, it’s my job to solve any of the problems that exist because once again, it’s an existing building in a certain area.

[00:15:47] Jenna: And you know, it’s near DuPont, which is amazing. Things like talking about a bridal suite. Well, It’s got all these rooms, you don’t have to get ready at the hotel. You can build a bridal suite right there, ’cause we’ve got seven rooms to use. And when it comes to things like parking is actually one of the things that I identified as this isn’t ideal.

[00:16:04] Jenna: Now it’s great in the sense on a site visit you can park right on site and walk right in the door, which is fantastic. But you know, there aren’t as many garages in that area. So of course, immediately we spoke with MJ Valet and said, Hey, we’re gonna need to be able to offer valet here.

[00:16:22] Jenna: And what is so great about them is their office is near us, but they brought up a point that we didn’t even realize. There’s a bus stop in front of Paige house and because of that we have to valet has to be just a little bit different. It just had to be tweaked. So, valet stands right in front.

[00:16:40] Jenna: They have a sign that moves you just a tiny bit down the road, and that’s where pickup and drop off goes. So once again, every venue is going to have some things that aren’t perfect, but it’s our job, brick and mortar’s job to find the solution to make sure that we are making that venue the best that it can possibly be.

[00:16:58] Jenna: And once again, this venue, if you think for the people that are local, if you think about Decatur House and DAR, which are so amazing and iconic, what Paige House is kind of a step sideways from those, because we have the courtyard, like Decatur house. We have ballroom that’s just under a thousand square feet that can do events, seated events around 80 or 90.

[00:17:24] Jenna: So the size of the space is very similar, but because it is not looking over the Washington Monument and not right next to the White House, it’s affordable for people, which is so important. And the great thing about how brick and mortar prices their venues is that they do it hourly, so you can get exactly what you need and everything is very transparent.

[00:17:47] Jenna: And if you only need six hours, you can buy six hours. If you need 10 hours, you can get 10 hours instead of these big packages, and everyone is equal. And I say that ‘ cause a lot of venues price, social events like weddings and corporate and nonprofit events differently. And at paige house everybody’s the same, which is great and that doesn’t mean that there can’t be particularly for a nonprofit, something worked out to accommodate a specific event, but it really makes it very transparent in how it works out.

[00:18:18] Jenna: And you get the whole space, you get the courtyard no matter what. If you’re there just parking your car there for the event, that’s fine. Or you can tent it and have your ceremony outside.

[00:18:28] Alison: And then that’s a whole new set of things is tenting permits in the middle of DC and it continues to build and build the amount of logistics you have to think about. And yes, we love being able to park right next to, ’cause I can’t tell you, you know, every once in a while it happens.

[00:18:44] Alison: You’re like late to a meeting, you’re like, it’s because I’ve circled the block at least 16 times and I cannot find parking. The garages are all full because it’s rush hour traffic. I even got here 30 minutes early so I can do that. So it’s great that you guys are thinking of that and that a bus stop could mess up everything, on where people could park or being able to do valet in a spot where you might normally have been able to, but now you can’t.

[00:19:08] Alison: And I’m curious, like with Paige House, because it is maybe connected to other residential houses and in a area that might just generally be residential, what are like the noise ordinances and how do you guys have to deal with that?

[00:19:22] Jenna: It’s dc so 11:00 PM is the time that everything would have to be quiet outside. And as a venue we have an 11:00 PM end time. We can extend it a little bit of leeway to midnight. But the events that go later than that are not appropriate events for a space like paige House.

[00:19:43] Jenna: The one event that we actually have already hosted did need to get extended because their talent was flying in from LA and arrived late. And so we made the exception to extended a little bit later so that their talent could perform.

[00:19:56] Alison: And so when we’re talking about kind of these things, like all the things that venues have to deal with, because, even out in Maryland, in Virginia, like when I got married the sound ordinance was 10, and in Virginia, some areas the ordinance is 10 or 11. And as a venue you have to deal with all of the complaints.

[00:20:15] Alison: Even a massive space that does events all the time, like the National Cathedral, neighbors complain and it becomes your problem because you also have to play nice with your neighbors in the area and make sure that they’re happy and that they’re not gonna keep calling the cops on you and stuff like that.

[00:20:32] Alison: But then also you want the client to be happy and not have to stress about that. So then you’re like but these are my rules and this is why I have to keep it to that. So sometimes with venues that are in DC in certain areas, it could be that there’s rules in place because neighbors complained so much, that now this is a rule.

[00:20:50] Alison: So there’s venues in DC and people probably know who I’m talking about, but where you can’t have amplified music outside in certain areas or past like a certain time. So for clients, they’re like, what do you mean? Why can’t I have dinner outside past nine o’clock? Or why can’t I have speeches? Or why can’t we use outside as a dance floor when it’s really nice and it’s like, you’re in the middle of dc.

[00:21:11] Alison: Even hotels have this issue. And just really quick I had a wedding at the St. Regis and we were able to go till 3:00 AM It’s the latest wedding I’ve ever hosted where it was the wedding day and not an after party. And we ended up like having people staying at the hotel that could see down into the terrace area.

[00:21:31] Alison: They were calling and complaining to the front desk because we were being too loud and we were respectful. Like we were able to turn the music down and it’s 3:00 AM people are slowing down. Like they’re not even on the dance floor anymore. People are exhausted. The bride and groom left two hours ago. So like, it’s just like we can turn the music down.

[00:21:49] Sarah: As somebody who’s dealt with venues in different areas, so a lot of it comes down to zoning. So if you’re zoned in a commercial area for example, the showroom is we can go till 3:00 AM there. On a Saturday, we go by DC Liquor Law. So we can go till 2:00 AM during the week and we can go till 3:00 AM on the weekends. So technically at the same Regis, ‘ cause I’m guessing that it was zoned as a commercial area. You could go till 3:00 AM and they might get complaints, but the zoning is what the zoning is, right? Like that is what the law is like, obviously you don’t wanna make people angry and you wanna be respectful.

[00:22:26] Alison: Because then in the case of St. Regis, or any hotel, you want those guests to come back and stay at your hotel again.

[00:22:32] Sarah: Yes, like obviously the showroom is like a standalone venue. It is in the building where the DC design center is, so there’s nobody there after hours for the most part. Nobody who’s gonna be bothered by somebody going late. Culture house when we were managing that venue is in a more residential area although it wasn’t zoned that way.

[00:22:54] Sarah: We would have way more complaints from neighbors even during the day. Usually the kind of general rule and you can look this up online, is that you have to be 60 decibels or lower within 10 feet of the property line. So we have decibel readers at every single one of our venues.

[00:23:11] Sarah: We can go and stand outside and use a decibel reader to literally see like whether or not it is outside of the boundaries of what the noise allowance is. And we try to be super respectful of all of our neighbors at any venue. And also we have the tools in place to make sure that we are operating within the DC laws.

[00:23:35] Jenna: The thing that was important about what you said is that we have rules, but every rule a venue has exists for a reason, whether it be to follow DC law, whether it is based on an experience with a neighbor. And there is one venue I can think of in DC that, every time there is an event, this one neighbor in a neighboring condo building complains.

[00:23:57] Jenna: And so they know that exists. But the rules sometimes get adjusted when somebody’s that vocal because you don’t want the person calling to complain every time. But that’s true from every rule that Sarah and I have at any of her venues, they all exist for a reason.

[00:24:14] Alison: And I can nerd with the rules stuff because when I used to work at the women’s Museum, that was one of my favorite things to do within reason, obviously it wasn’t trying to just be crazy and be like, oh, how can I think of a new rule? Every once in a while would go to my boss and I would be like, this has gotta be a rule.

[00:24:31] Alison: Like people keep taking advantage of this certain thing, or this happened during a wedding and this can never happen again. And that’s how rules come about. And yes, most of them are to keep the venue safe, contractually liability wise and all of the things behind the scenes there, but also mainly just because someone unfortunately ruined it for everyone, whether it is a complaining neighbor who we have to respect since that’s where they live.

[00:24:58] Alison: And I had a friend who she moved into an apartment and they didn’t tell her that she was moving in over like a hookah bar, the hookah bar was allowed to like have music and people outside until like, well into the morning. And she lasted all of a couple months before she had to move. She was like, I can’t deal with this.

[00:25:17] Alison: It’s just too much, like I’m exhausted after coming home from work. And then the music is pounding and I called to complain and they don’t have to do anything because they’re zoned that way, or something like that. And that’s where venues try to be so respectful and try to help, but each client is different and sometimes there surprises.

[00:25:37] Alison: And that’s where some rules have come up for me, where I had one time a wedding where someone snuck a dog into the venue. You know, as a venue person, you guys get it. We’re running around, we’re paying attention, but we have so much to do. We’re checking in to make sure people are following our rules, that our floors are protected, especially if it’s a historic location.

[00:25:58] Alison: Jenna knows that with dealing with the melon. And that’s where it’s like we had marble floors and at one point we stripped all of the wax off of the marble floors. So now it’s just raw marble, which scratches, marks up easy, it gets etched away or stained with red wine. So now we have more rules after vendors have been working in this space for 10 plus 15 years.

[00:26:24] Alison: And now you have to put carpets out, you can’t drag metal across the floor anymore like you used to. So that was like this huge shift of us needing to have brand new rules. We released the rules to people. We sent multiple emails before anyone walked into the space, we then had to remind them, be like, Hey, I know things are different, just a reminder.

[00:26:46] Alison: And then even having to like battle people on site, I’m be like, oh, I’m so sorry. Please don’t pull on that, you’ll scratch the floor if you do that. I can help you lift it if you need to and help you get it over here or something. But back to the dog. So, I’m standing in the back with the caterer, the ceremony’s happening.

[00:27:01] Alison: I finally just got to stop for one second and the caterer leads over, he is like, oh, did you see the little puppy? It was so cute. And I just go see the what? There’s a dog, there’s a dog in here. And as the venue person, this is not my space, I’m just tired to work here. So if there’s a dog in the space, I get in trouble.

[00:27:20] Alison: The security gets in trouble. This is a historic museum. So now we’re having to like, the security and I are like walking around, where is the dog? Did it leave? Is it still on the property? How long has it been here? And the couple and the planner were just like, oh, it wasn’t in your rules. So we thought we could bring the dog in, and fair enough, you got me.

[00:27:43] Alison: But at the same time, the fact that you felt like you had to sneak it in, that’s the main thing, like that you knew that it probably wasn’t allowed just because it wasn’t written in the rules. So then I wanted to say well, it’s in the rules now. And I think I went up to my desk, emailed my boss, and was like, we now need to put this in here.

[00:28:01] Jenna: I’m pretty sure we have a no animal rule, but that’s one of the great things because, sarah and I have been doing this for so long at so many different venues. I wish we could anticipate all of them. Sarah and I were having a conversation before we got on today about why there are now fees for human waste removal at events.

[00:28:23] Jenna: That shouldn’t exist, but it has to. But when she moves from one venue to the next, it’s really easy to look at the existing rules, pick out some new ones based on the actual space, and then it’s a little bit of wait and see.

[00:28:37] Sarah: Yeah, and so, there are several things like, we do a ton of bar bat mitzvahs, which are some of my favorite events, and you have to wear shoes in the venue rule. And that is mostly because the biggest injury that I see is people coming into my office asking for bandaids because they’ve cut their feet on glass and almost every big event, especially social ones, glasses break, things fall, and caterers and everybody do the best that they can to sweep up all the glass.

[00:29:08] Sarah: If you have a bunch of 13-year-old kids dancing without shoes on, somebody will inevitably be in my office with a bleeding foot asking for a bandaid. So when people are like why do you have this no shoes, or you have to wear shoes in the venue rule. It’s because that is literally the biggest injury that I’ve dealt with over like years.

[00:29:29] Alison: 100% I agree because my ears are now trained to hearing breaking glass. As soon as you hear it on the middle of the dance floor, you’re like, where is it? Where is it? And it’s probably as a planner, not even my job anymore. But I’ll descend with cater, follow me. Like I heard broken glass, like we’re on the dance floor, we’re we have our phones with our flashlights on and we’re trying to look for all the bits, but if you have a floor like cement or marble or something like that, it spreads. It just keeps going, and it could be across the room and if someone doesn’t know they’re gonna step on it.

[00:30:03] Sarah: Yes. I’ve built out a specific system. It’s a CRM program that I created specifically for event venues where we have you know, templates for like reminders and all that stuff that go out to not only planners, but to like vendors as well.

[00:30:20] Sarah: So we have a CRM program that we use and we set up reminders that remind people about hey, this is like your time to do these walkthroughs with your vendors. Like, are all your vendors, depending on the venue, certain venues have, only approved vendor lists and some have like more flexibility.

[00:30:37] Sarah: It just depends. Like if it has more flexibility, have they gone through the approval process? Have you done these walkthroughs with them? Have they submitted their certificate of insurance? And all of this is automated. If you have worked at any of our venues, you will have pretty much the same experience at the next venue, which is what we wanted to do was to give everybody, and you’ll get access to like a Google Drive folder that has examples of the you know, certificates of insurance that we need, that has floor plans. It has all the things that people would email us and have to ask for. It has links to our photo galleries, it has links to timeline which, a lot of planners work on their own timelines, but if we were working with an end client, sometimes they just need a little guidance in terms of like, who do you hire first and where are you going? And how do you kinda organize this?

[00:31:27] Sarah: So it has kinda like timelines and like what we expect and all of the things. So it can hopefully make the process really streamlined and really easy for any client that’s booking in any of our spaces.

[00:31:39] Alison: And I think that’s amazing, ‘ cause as a planner we are sometimes, depending on the planner and what packages you offer and stuff like that, and how many clients you might be working with, you could have, you know, 20 different events, 10 different events. And sometimes those events have multiple events.

[00:31:54] Alison: So then it feels like you’re working 20 events. But we’re dealing with a lot of different venues all over the DMV and there’s even planners that then travel, that have weddings in the DMV, but then might have something in Florida or California or over in Italy or something like that. So you’re dealing with so many different venues, so many different rules, so many different load ins and stuff like that, like what a lot of clients don’t understand is the logistical mind power it takes to organize a load-in. And like sometimes, there’s venues where only one truck can get in at a time and that’s where that load-in comes in.

[00:32:31] Alison: And you’re saying with your venues, you guys are work it hourly. And that’s where I’m like, that’s amazing that you guys do that because then people can really think about, all right, how many hours do I need? But then if there’s not education coming from you guys, which I imagine there always is, so that’s helpful to a client that might not have a planner, but a client’s like, oh well I’ll just book an eight hour package.

[00:32:53] Alison: But then they’re like set up and their vision for their wedding be like, honey, you need 14 hours. What are you talking about? So now they’re like, oh, why is it double the cost of the venue when I thought I had it secured? And we run into that sometimes too, but the load-in is sometimes like the trickier part. But yeah. Jenna, what do you have to share?

[00:33:12] Jenna: Oh I was gonna just go off of that and say, point out how true that is? particularly when there’s not a planner involved, have no sense of how long it takes to load in an event. And so I actually was just having email communications last night with someone who said they want to do this event, three hour event.

[00:33:30] Jenna: And so I estimated for them approximately four hours to load in, and said that it could go beyond that depending on their decor, their needs. And they came back and said that they wanted a two hour load in. And they want to reduce the cost, but they don’t understand that it is near impossible at almost any venue to load in a full event in two hours.

[00:33:54] Alison: And that’s even with approved caterers. So like if you have a list of approved caterers, they know the space, like the back of their hand. They’ve worked there a million times, but still there is a certain amount of time that it takes to unload a truck, get it in. There could be circumstance, like what if it’s raining outside? Now this is slowing down everyone. What if they hit a roadblocks? This is slowing everyone down. So, load-in takes a certain amount of time.

[00:34:18] Jenna: And loadout as well, and I think a lot of our venues have a minimum two hour loadout, because that’s also the one thing, they’re like, we can get out in an hour. The reality is if your event ends at 10, your guests aren’t out at 10, and so you gotta get the guests out, then you gotta load the stuff out, and some take longer or less.

[00:34:37] Jenna: But once again, knowing that information and trusting the person who is managing the venue, to give you real information and how that translates into your event and the amount of time that you need, we’re going to be very forthcoming with it. But you also have to listen to us because we are the experts.

[00:34:56] Alison: And that’s the hardest part is like, the trust aspect, and we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, where a lot of people don’t trust the wedding industry sometimes because they think we’re just out for money or something like that, and yeah money’s great. It’s what everyone needs to survive in this world and do what you wanna do and pay your bills.

[00:35:15] Alison: But at the same time, a lot of our industry really truly cares about our clients, and wants you to have an amazing event, whether it’s corporate, social weddings, or barn bat mitzvahs. But at the same time, like your vendors, when they’re telling you they need additional load in, it’s not because they’re adding more money on you, it’s something that they’re like, ugh, we know that we really need this to make their event successful and we have to ask for this, and they feel bad about it.

[00:35:41] Alison: We know this might cost you an extra a thousand dollars or whatever, a fee is for a venue to load in. I’ve seen $3,000, you know, additional to add just an hour at some venues to be able to load in, and others have a $500 fee, so it ranges dramatically.

[00:35:58] Alison: But when it’s hourly it really does make you sit there and think, okay, how many hours do I need? And then explaining that to the clients, it becomes a little bit easier. Whereas venues, they have a set amount of time okay, here’s your event time and then here’s your exact load in time, and then you could add additional time.

[00:36:16] Alison: Most clients then think, oh, I’ll just go with the normal package that the venue has, like everyone always does that. That makes sense to me. And then I always feel bad as their planner going to them and saying, okay, we do need to add to more additional hours because with the scope of your event, which we created as the planning process has gone, we need additional time.

[00:36:38] Sarah: I was really adamant about doing an hourly booking fee when I opened the showroom especially like we have a really wide range of clients that book there, and a lot of them are media clients. A lot of them are corporate clients and some of them are nonprofit and et cetera.

[00:36:54] Sarah: But a lot of them have unique needs. They’ll have a loading day, then they’ll have an event that lasts, that’s just like a morning event and whatever. So when I was thinking about the way I was gonna structure the pricing, it just made more sense I feel like I wanna pay for what I’m using, so that was a way I came up with the hourly structure, it made clients feel like they were paying for what they were using. But again, I totally agree with you. You have to trust your vendors. When they say that they need this amount of time for this venue, they’re in there again and again, and they know what they’re talking about.

[00:37:30] Sarah: They are the best resource, that’s who we send clients to find out how much time they need, usually the av vendor because they usually need the most amount of time.

[00:37:40] Alison: Yeah, and also unloading, what a lot of people don’t understand, ‘ cause somehow, weirdly, I become like the last vendor on site or like one of the few last, I know Alex has called me Psycho sometimes for how intense I am on events and stuff like that. ’cause I just wanna make sure everything’s going well.

[00:37:55] Alison: But, making sure all the vendors are there before we head out and stuff so that the venue feels comfortable before we leave. Because I couldn’t imagine like leaving and then two of my vendors not there. And then like, how are you guys reaching them? What if the phone keeps ringing? I might be able to text them or call them and be like, Hey, where are you? So we wanna make sure all the vendors are there to load out because then that impacts you behind the scenes of okay, we’re waiting for so and so to come get the stage before the catering can mop the floor and for them to leave.

[00:38:24]

[00:38:24] Jenna: And we appreciate that. We appreciate planners that stay ’cause that actually is not the norm.

[00:38:31] Alison: Yeah, sometimes I’m the last vendor and you’re right Sarah, you are watching AV coil and coil and coil all of their cords, ‘ cause they have to like get the tape off and then they have to roll them all up, then they have all the stuff that they have to put in their cases. And for clients that don’t understand how many cases there are, which are these giant rolling boxes to unload and offload onto the truck, and then they have to find storage, they have to get them out of the storage.

[00:38:59] Alison: it’s just amazing to watch them do that. Unfortunately I had venues be like, you can coil your stuff outside, right? And then you’re just seeing the AV people, they got everything out, but then they’re on the sidewalk, like coiling up their extension cords and putting stuff back in their cases because it takes so long. I applaud you guys, that’s amazing amount of time. On average we see load out be anywhere from an hour to three hours, depending on the venue and how difficult the loading process is from wherever the cars or trucks are situated because, I am in a giant chat with a bunch of planners and outside of that, you know, just generally talking to like people in the industry and stuff like that, you always just to hear the number one complaint is like, ugh, the load in process at this one venue is so hard. They make us jump through so many loops just to get into the building, and the fact that you guys have a lot of great venues that you can just load in from the street and there can be like multiple cars like parked and just throw on your four way flashers and as long as you don’t like park there all night, we’re good.

[00:40:00] Jenna: Yeah, and one of the other things that we have done specifically at Paige House that it doesn’t actually apply at the other venues, is there are certain things that would actually cost you more load in time and I’m gonna use the example of both the tent and av. So if you tent the courtyard and you had to buy all of the hours to get access to the courtyard, to put up a tent and take down a tent, that is going to cost you as much as the tent.

[00:40:29] Jenna: So instead, you have to get the tent through the venue and in the end, save you a considerable amount of money because then we can have the flexibility of when it goes up, when it comes down and you’re just paying for the tent instead of paying for the tent plus another six hours, and the same is true as an AV option.

[00:40:48] Jenna: So at paige house we do have an approved vendor list. You can use the approved vendors or you can use the non-approved vendors, but get approval for a vendor for a specific event, there is a fee attached to doing that, but you can do it. So you can bring in exactly who you want or you can use in-house.

[00:41:05] Jenna: In-house is gonna save you on that AV end because once again, if we have everything in-house for you to be able to utilize, you’re not gonna have that same three hour loadout and so you’re just worried about your decor getting in and out and your caterer getting in and out. But if you absolutely love a specific lighting company.

[00:41:26] Jenna: You can absolutely use them, and we are big fan. Sarah and I are both big fans of freedom of choice with our clients as long as it is a reputable company. But I do think we’ve tried to really think about ways to save our clients money because we want your events, we want your business, and how can we make our venue work for you? And I think that’s important.

[00:41:48] Sarah: Yes and I have to say like I talk about showroom a lot just because right now it’s our largest venue, but we have other large venues coming, and opening soon. But we have a ton of repeat clients, and when I say repeat, we have clients that do over 40 days a year at the space.

[00:42:04] Sarah: And so I feel like it’s because we make it super streamlined and super easy for them to work at the venue. We love the planners that we work with. We love the vendors that we work with. So we have clients who book, more than 40 days in a year. And I think the reason that we have those clients is because we have a super streamlined way of booking, everything from booking to their event day. We make it really easy for them, and that is our goal with any of our venues, is to kind of make sure that there is a streamlined process and that everything is just really super clear cut. I would rather tell a client no at the very beginning, for example, when somebody wanted to have fire pits with s’mores in the middle of the venue, then have to let everybody know the expectations upfront. And I think that’s really important for planners. Allison, you can talk more to this, but hopefully i easier. When a venue is saying, this is what you can and can’t do.

[00:43:06] Alison: It’s definitely helpful and especially when we get so much from you in advance. Like I think you sent over elevator dimensions for some spaces you sent over floor plans, which, sometimes we have to like, go searching for or like beg sometimes, and some venues don’t even have floor plans, which is wild to say.

[00:43:23] Alison: Not in dc. There’s some in Virginia that it’s like I have to draw on pen and paper for like drawing a floor plan. But it’s just a testament to like how much you’ve thought about what needs to go into and trying to anticipate everything, knowing that some things are gonna slip through because things are wild in the event world and you never can think of every single thing. ‘Cause even as a planner, there’s been times where it’s like, I have never experienced this before and I’ve been in this industry for over 10 years and I’ve never had to deal with this before, but I have to deal with it, with grace and a smile and get through it. And it’s just a great testament for you guys to say that you have thought of everything.

[00:44:01] Alison: So with thinking of everything, let’s nerd out a little bit and get a little hopefully not too boring here, but I’d love to hear the logistics side of things of like, when you’re thinking about building or bringing a venue on, you then have to like think of the zoning, the liquor laws, and getting all of that in place and the permitting and everything that takes so much time. And you might be dealing with DC bureaucrats and stuff like that. So I’m curious kind of some of the behind the scenes that people might not know about and fun things that you might wanna share that you want people to know about.

[00:44:32] Sarah: I’m getting emails from my architect about a new space that we’re working on.

[00:44:37] Sarah: It is actually bigger than the showroom.

[00:44:39] Alison: Which is desperately needed in this area. For those that are listening that might not be familiar, spaces are smaller than 150 people to be able to host a wedding, and then they get smaller and smaller from there. So larger spaces, a lot of people feel that they either have to go to a hotel ballroom that they might not want to, because unfortunately, there are stigmas against hotels and weddings for some reason, even in 2025, even though there are some absolutely stunning hotels in the DC area and surrounding.

[00:45:09] Alison: But it’s just one of those things where people want like a large ballroom like the melon, but then they might not be able to afford it.

[00:45:16] Jenna: They might not wanna spend $50,000 just for a space.

[00:45:19] Alison: Or also the logistics of like, everything that needs to go into that because that’s a logistically challenging venue to work in just in general. And the amount of vendors you need to bring in just to pull off like even the simplest of events there. So yes, definitely excited for a new venue. Sarah, please continue on the fun logistics behind the scenes.

[00:45:38] Sarah: So I think what a lot of people don’t understand is, recently there are a lot of empty spaces in dc and so people wonder why you can’t just go in and have an event in an empty space that nobody else is using. And there are a bunch of things that factor into that.

[00:45:55] Sarah: What is the space use that, its certificate of occupancy is basically set for, right. So like if you have a retail space, and it might have two restrooms, but it might be 14,000 square feet and you haven’t done a capacity study that involves where are the exits and things like that, because it was used as a retail space.

[00:46:13] Sarah: So the number of people in that space at any one time would’ve maybe been a hundred, but you could technically fit probably close to a thousand people in 14,000 square feet or around a thousand people. But that depends on the number of exits, the number of restrooms, it depends on the hvac and the tonnage that HVAC is pushing through to the space, right? You have enough airflow for the number of guests that you’re gonna put in a space. And then you have to go to DCRA. You have to go through the entire permitting process, get the space use changed to an assembly space, right? Which is what most event venues are zoned as or permitted as for their certificate of occupancy.

[00:46:54] Sarah: And it takes structural engineers, it takes people who can evaluate HVAC systems. It takes an architect who does your capacity study and tells you how many restrooms you need and whether or not your exits are adequate and how many people you can fit in the space based on those things.

[00:47:09] Sarah: So it is not just a let me look at this space and it looks big and awesome, and we can just go in there and have an event. We have recently been partnering with people who have connections with different agencies in the city. There was a whole popup program through like the mayor’s office where you could do popup, but you can’t do any construction for that.

[00:47:31] Sarah: So then you’re limited based on what the existing space is. So it might be 14,000 square feet. You can only fit 200 people because there’s only two restrooms. So anyway, it is an in depth process and the permitting process through DCRA in order to get a demo permit, in order to get a building permit. I would say at least four plus months. So that period to do the permitting before you even start your build out.

[00:48:00] Sarah: It is a long process. I would say we open showroom in 2017 and it was a nine months process. So it is a complex process, it is not something that you can just open doors and have people come in and have an event. And we specialize in unique spaces and we want to use spaces that are not utilized in the city right now.

[00:48:24] Sarah: So we will try to work with clients, to work with like different landlords or to work with the city or to work with the DC bid or to work with like, the different bids in the different areas to say, Hey, there’s a space here. How can we utilize it while it’s sitting empty and be creative about how we’re thinking about bringing these events back into DC and making it like a really vibrant event like city, which DC has always been.

[00:48:51] Alison: Thank you. I can appreciate that because we always love hearing about new venues and bringing new, exciting things to our clients and dreaming up new designs and being challenged on the logistics of a venue as well, and the amount that you have to deal with behind the scenes. And then, walk into a site visit and be like, hello, let’s talk about your wedding or your event.

[00:49:11] Alison: And so you guys are building the house, you’re the contractor, but then you’re also the real estate agent then selling the space continuously to new clients. So you can do both. Congratulations. That’s amazing.

[00:49:27] Sarah: And I have to say Jenna is the expert at that, she really has figured out how to like, target the market, the pushing out of the information about the venues to every kind of like avenue. And that is not my expertise, but she is like really figured out how to do that.

[00:49:42]

[00:49:43] Jenna: It’s why we’re balanced really well in this collaboration because I want nothing to do with DC permitting ever. But I love a good marketing challenge and I think our industry, and I’m sure you’ve seen this, Alison, like over the years, has just changed so much and everyone thinks there’s this great solution called social media, and it’s not.

[00:50:08] Jenna: Our industry at its core is based on like personal connections and picking up the phone and talking to people because people scrolling through, particularly on the venue side, people scrolling through their Instagram, they’re not looking for their venue that way. They might be looking for a beautiful florals for their mood board, but at the end of the day, it is more effective that social media has its place and it’s important.

[00:50:34] Jenna: Our industry as a whole, we need to pick up the phone, call each other, talk to each other, show each other new spaces, and listen to feedback from the planners. Like on the venue side, we need to hear the planner’s feedback to make a venue better for the clients. Because most of us, I think, on the venue side, have real relationships in the B2B situation.

[00:50:59] Jenna: But we don’t particularly know exactly what the brides want these days. You know, we’re not keeping up on every trend. And so you guys giving feedback and saying, we need to figure out how we can make this happen in your venues, whatever this is, and that goes back to the beginning of the time at Mellon when one of the first weddings there wanted to hang 20,000 silk butterflies from the ceiling.

[00:51:24] Jenna: Now, I don’t know how to hang silk butterflies, but I was willing to hear that that’s what the client wanted, hear the decor company who had a plan on how to execute that and then was able to approve that they could make that happen. And that’s what we want as venues, we want to give the clients and give the planners the ability to design their dream event.

[00:51:47] Jenna: And all you have to do is ask, as long as it’s with reason.

[00:51:51] Alison: Yes, a lot of people tried to do that when I was at the women’s museum. Yep. Sneaking the dog in a 16 foot tall tree when the bottom of the ball of our chandeliers was 14 feet. So that was scary, and we found that out two weeks before the event.

[00:52:07] Alison: I’m like, you’ve been planning this for months. Why do I just know about this now? It’s because you knew I would say no. So planners, we don’t always do this, but let’s not try to sneak things in just because it will make the moment for the wedding better. Let’s figure out how to make it work.

[00:52:22] Alison: Because as a venue we don’t wanna say, no, we wanna help you make this work if we can logistically, and we also have to protect our space, because what if this silk butterfly thing that you’re talking about, what if this made the ceiling cave in? I’m going dramatic here. You’re not there probably didn’t even rig to the ceiling.

[00:52:39] Alison: But what if it did? And that’s why we have to think about the weight of things, how is it being rigged up? Are there rigging points? And that’s just to be able to hang like a floral arrangement or something in the space, but also what are the dimensions of the ceiling? Because we’ve had people wanna take drape up super high and we’re like, yeah, let’s see how high the drape can go.

[00:52:59] Alison: But then is it safe at that height? And then that’s where I need to rely on my vendor partners to be like, the highest we’ve gone is this safely. So okay, I trust you, and then you have to go to the client. They’re like, but I want it higher. And it’s like, well, it doesn’t work that way. So that’s why it may take some time behind the scenes because you say you want butterflies suspended from the ceiling. That sounds easy to the client, just do it. But then for us, as planners are going to the venue. We’re talking out the logistics with you. Then we have to go to the production company and talk out logistics with them. Make sure you guys connect with them.

[00:53:33] Alison: We do site visits. We’re looking at rigging points. We’re talking about if it doesn’t get connected to the building, how else does it go up? What’s the load in time? This now has become a month’s worth of communication, trying to figure out just how to hang silk butterflies.

[00:53:49] Alison: But I’ve loved all this. Again, nerding out as a venue. I could talk about this forever. I have 15 million stories I could tell. I’m sure you guys do as well. But I would love to, just for some fun here, since a lot of this was pretty logistical. I’m open to one of two things from you guys. What is the craziest thing you’ve had to deal with permits or anything like that?

[00:54:09] Alison: Or what’s the craziest request you’ve ever heard from a client, like the fire pits where that was going in their mind, be like well, we don’t wanna suffocate everyone with fire pits inside of a building with closed doors and windows, but I get it. So I’m curious to hear anything crazy.

[00:54:24] Jenna: I think Sarah and I talked considerably about this idea of the crazy things. And what’s interesting is that when you ask about silk butterflies or whether or not you can have an elephant walk down constitution Avenue, those things that sound crazy, those are the things you can actually make happen because somebody asks.

[00:54:46] Jenna: Early on at the bell and there was a wedding, and I got a call from the onsite person saying, there is a cow hanging from a ladder in the green room and blood is dripping on the floor. Now, by blood they meant like juice. It was a cooked cow, but it was a whole cow. And I was just like, I don’t even know what to say to that.

[00:55:07] Jenna: And had they asked, we obviously would’ve explained no, in action in the moment it was happening. We said, get some plastic on the floor. Those are historic floors. So that’s where like the wild comes into play, but really what we deal with all the time as venues is what we have deemed like the most ridiculous request.

[00:55:27] Jenna: And this goes back to social media. So we get countless requests as venues from influencers who really feel that it is in our best interest to give them our spaces for free. For their birthday party, their wedding, their whatever. You go and you click on their link, just out of curiosity, and they have anywhere from, 700 followers to maybe like five or 10,000 followers.

[00:55:53] Jenna: Going back to what I was saying about venues is, having an influencer or so-called influencer’s event is not actually going to help our businesses, make our businesses stronger. Anyone who is at the level where they can, they’re more than happy to pay us for our services.

[00:56:10] Jenna: So that’s what I say ridiculous story. But the cow hanging was definitely the wildest in real life thing that’s happened.

[00:56:19] Alison: That made my jaw drop, I can’t imagine that call actually, can’t imagine that call be like hey boss, there’s a cow.

[00:56:26] Jenna: Yeah it was definitely a moment.

[00:56:29] Alison: So Sarah, what do you got from us?

[00:56:31] Sarah: I would say one of my most challenging but funny stories is that I always thought that I would never get married at the Mellon because I worked there, I spent so many hours of my life there, right?

[00:56:42] Alison: Oh my gosh, yes. I’m gonna interrupt you here because when I was engaged a long long time ago, everyone and their mother kept asking me, are you gonna get married at the women’s museum? probably what you’re just saying is like, this space is beautiful, I love it, but I would feel like I’m at work. So for you, did you feel like you were at work?

[00:56:59] Sarah: So, this is what happened is that we were supposed to get married at the showroom. It was supposed to be the first event there, and the permits were two weeks behind. So two weeks before our wedding, Jenna was kind enough to put our wedding date on hold at the Mellon.

[00:57:14] Sarah: And so two weeks before our wedding, we changed our location to the Mellon, so we didn’t even tell people I just had MJ valet bring like buses, so everybody still just showed up at the showroom. The floors weren’t finished, it was nothing was quite done and we were like, here’s our cocktail hour while we give you a tour through our unfinished space.

[00:57:37] Sarah: And then we just put everyone on buses and then took them to the melon for our wedding and had all of our vendors like just switch over two weeks before our wedding. I was like no, I actually know what I’m doing at the Melon more than I did at the showroom because we’re open yet.

[00:57:51] Sarah: And all of the vendors were people who I had known from working at the Mellon for so long. So it was not that stressful. We ended up just making it work and that was the other thing, we just rolled with it. But it was really funny that it was this like whole full circle of me ending up, getting married there, after you know, saying, I’m not gonna get married where I work or whatever, even though it’s an incredible venue.

[00:58:16] Alison: So I wanna thank both of you so much for being on our podcast today and going over all of the trials and tribulations of being a venue owner, managing venues, building venues, all of the things. And we’ll probably have to have you guys back on to share some more crazier stories later.

[00:58:32] Alison: But I would love for you guys to share your excitement about the new paige house opening and to stay tuned for more venues opening up in the next year, depending on how permits and zoning and all of the things you talked about go. But how can we find your website, social media? Is anything like that?

[00:58:51] Sarah: So we are brick and mortar venues.com. and, our Instagram is brick and mortar venues and we also have separate information for Paige House, which I will let Jenna throw out there.

[00:59:05] Jenna: So, Paige House is Paige House dc.com and our social media is Paige House DC and all of Sarah’s venues have brick and mortar, so you can find them all right there and then each of them have individual websites that allow people to get a little more in depth on the information, so you can find the floor plans, but it works really well to just go in through brick and mortar and you can request information on multiple venues all in one place.

[00:59:39] Sarah: One last thing, if I can throw it in there, is that if you have a venue that you’re looking to have somebody manage, we also will take, inquiries for venue management. If you have a gallery, if you have a museum, if you have a space that you want to have somebody use for events, we also do that.

[00:59:57] Alison: Amazing. And we’ll share this in our show notes as well so that you can find all of the amazing locations that they just shared with you. Sarah, Jenna, thank you again for your time and we look forward to the next episode. We have a bunch of exciting people that we’re interviewing coming up and we will be taking a break at some point during the holidays, but we’ll send an email blast out for that. So until then, we’ll see everyone next time. Bye.

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