Listen to the Podcast About Maison Albion
Podcast Summary
In the recent podcast with Jake Carter, hospitality professional Kerri Glover discussed details about Maison Albion, the historic upstate New York event venue she proudly owns. Maison Albion is an 1878 Italianate mansion Kerri and her team meticulously renovated to historic standards, with an added French theme celebrating the area’s Francophone settlers.
Kerri revealed that Maison Albion seeks to function not just as a wedding venue, but as a community hub. Located midway between Buffalo and Rochester, this venue also appeals to Manhattanites desiring budget-friendly, bucolic nuptials. In addition to weddings, Maison Albion hosts a wide range of community events, with a French Market being the most glamorous and sizeable one, attracting 500-600 attendees annually.
Given her 25 years of experience in the hospitality industry, Kerri consults for various venues nationwide. After recently signing a deal for a new venue, her portfolio now increases to 25 sites. In addition to overseeing Maison Albion, she interacts daily with 200-400 couples looking for their perfect wedding venue.
Maison Albion, with its lush English country garden and private lake, serves as an affordable and beautiful ceremony venue that both locals from Buffalo and Rochester and city dwellers from Manhattan appreciate. Its rich history, combined with the unique French theme, sets the stage for unforgettable events.
In a nutshell, whether for creating dreamy weddings or hosting local community events, Kerri Glover’s Maison Albion provides a vibrant blend of historical charm and modern convenience.
Learn more about Maison Albion
This interview was provided by Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos
Podcast Transcript
Jake (00:24)
Hello, I’m Jake Carter with Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos. I’m here with Kerri Glover. Thank you so much for coming and joining me on another podcast. I’m so excited to have you back.
Kerri Glover (00:28)
Hi.
Thanks Jake for having me. I appreciate it.
Jake (00:35)
For those of you that didn’t hear the other one, the other one we talked about, Maui Pineapple Chapel, but we saw such a good opportunity to talk about different venues that Kerri manages and works with because she’s a venue consultant, venues all over the country, and then you own Maison Albion in New York. So today we’re gonna talk about Maison Albion, so anyone looking to book things in New York, that’s what we’re gonna spend most of our time on today. Little bit of background, you are an executive level marketing
Kerri Glover (00:54)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you.
Jake (01:05)
Hospitality executive with more than 25 years of experience I think you were just mentioning to me that you have got another venue that you’re building so it’s gonna be 25 venues that you have Yeah Awesome, so lots of experience And then it you manage additional venues across the United States and speak to anywhere between two and four hundred couples a day so
Kerri Glover (01:14)
This is number 25. I just signed the contract today.
Correct.
Jake (01:27)
Just a wealth of knowledge here. So thank you so much for talking to me I was our last one went so well that I was like you have to come back. We have to talk again Yeah, anything else that you want to bring up about Just the location of the venue and things before we get started on some of the questions
Kerri Glover (01:31)
Thank you. Thanks, Jake.
Sure, yeah, Maison, let’s see, we built a little mini history of it. It’s an 1878 mansion, Italianite mansion. And we bought it about four years ago and completely gutted and renovated the property, not remodeled. So we tried to bring it back to its historical standards. We’re very lucky, actually, there’s a book written about our property. So we’re able to do a lot of historically accurate things. Gorgeous English country gardens, we have our own lake.
about halfway between Buffalo and Rochester. So it’s in Western New York, or as those of us in Western New York refer to it, upstate New York, for about 45 minutes from Niagara Falls. But very popular even with Manhattanites who really want to have a wedding in the country that’s very affordable. And then really popular of course with our clients in Buffalo and Rochester. But it has a French theme. I made it a French theme because the area was originally settled by the French.
as many of the small towns are around us, they’re all French names. So we kind of brought that French flair back to the mansion and so that’s Maison means house or home. So it literally translates to the home of Albion. And we really wanted to design it to be a community center and it really is the focus of the community. So I feel like we succeeded in that way for sure. It’s been a really fun ride building something that I get to make all the decisions on my own venue, which has been really fun.
Jake (03:08)
Yeah. I was, uh, I checked out your website for this venue just cause I was curious and I noticed it’s funny that you’re saying it’s been a community space because I noticed that you guys host quite a bit of community events. It looked like there was like a market for artisans, like an artisan market that you guys are doing pretty soon. Lots of stuff.
Kerri Glover (03:12)
Well, thank you.
Yes.
This weekend, it starts tomorrow, we have a French market. It’s actually our biggest event of the year. We welcome between 500 and 600 people over the two day event, which is a big event in our area. And this is our biggest market we’ve ever had. We have 65 handmade vintage produce or antique dealers, like a true French rocante, a French market. We have food trucks and pony rides and mansion tours. And it’s very gorgeous. It’s the prettiest market you’ll ever
Jake (03:51)
Thank you.
Kerri Glover (03:57)
go to because we create all these photo ops full of flowers and all these fun things. So we’ve been doing that for the four years we’ve owned it. It’s our most successful event that we produce ourselves. On top of that, we also host 10 nonprofits a year, complimentary. We completely comp the venue and our staff to run it. And nonprofits just need to apply and then we consider them one by one. We also host a lot of events for the community that are celebrations as well.
Jake (04:02)
Yeah.
Kerri Glover (04:27)
settings.
Jake (04:27)
Awesome. And so just before we get into the questions and talking more specifically about the venue and events and stuff, because I know you have a very impressive and very long bio and I’ve kind of touched on some of the points, but I know that you mentioned to me you’re based in the UK, right? So do you want to tell me a little bit more about just kind of the breadth of all of these venues and the work that you do?
Kerri Glover (04:45)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, so I’m a venue consultant, which means I work. I build, design, and launch 24 wedding venues. And so sometimes companies hire me to come in and improve their venue, be it through design, marketing operations, efficiency. Sometimes I build the venue from scratch, doing all the interior design, hiring the staff, marketing launch, financial projections, business plan. I’m also an attorney. I went back to law school during COVID, so I can represent my clients as well. In the planning commission, I write their contracts for them.
things like that and you know some of our venues that we manage like once we’ve worked with them they have us ongoing manage them they mean my husband and I we work together to do the ongoing marketing and sales some of our owners are super hands-on and some of them are super hands-off so just depends on what it is that our clients want we’ve been able to design our own venue we were very hands-on at the beginning but now we live in London and travel back and forth to New York we have an amazing team there that runs
Jake (05:31)
Ahem.
Kerri Glover (05:52)
everything. So we’ve really figured out the processes in order to do that. A lot of the owners that I work with are kind of in retirement age and they don’t want to be as hands-on anymore, which allows us to step in and really improve their sales, improve their profitability, and also manage their team for them. So they’re just keeping the asset and keeping the paycheck from the venue.
Jake (06:13)
That’s awesome.
So with all of that experience and having been around all the different venues and all the different parts of the venue, working on planning and like the venue and planning the events makes for really fun interviews. So thank you so much once again for coming back. I thoroughly appreciate it. So let’s get into some fun questions about events here before we talk specifically about your Maison specifics. What are some challenges that you face when working with couples or event planners and how do you overcome those?
Kerri Glover (06:24)
Thanks. I appreciate it.
great.
Albion.
Let’s see, the challenges I think working in every market from Maui to Tennessee is pretty much the same, that couples see a lot of things online, they have really big expectations of how far their dollar will go, and especially in the United States right now, experiencing inflation and how much small businesses have had to change their pricing, it really changes what couples can get for their dollar, and so their expectations are sometimes here, but what they can afford is here. So my job a lot of times,
sales manager is like trying to meet those expectations in the middle or helping them find solutions with vendors that will at least be able to scale what their dreams are so it’s not you know it’s not a no it’s just a yes we can do that but just at this scale because that’s more what your budget allows and then making sure that our venue fits into there appropriately so that they’re not what I call venue poor kind of like similar to house poor where you make a too big of an investment upfront and you can’t let the rest of your dreams come true we want to make sure that they’re like getting into the right venue
So I don’t say that I come from a place where I’m a very like hard salesperson I come from a sales background of helpful and so and that really works well in the wedding industry when you come from the place Like I have all this experience. Let me help you and assist you Let’s see if our venue fits into the pieces that you have here and nine times out of ten you can make it work But there’s that one out of ten that doesn’t work and then they’re not the right client for you anyway and
for you, so just let them go. That’s okay. There’s going to be some other wedding and some other person that fits that date perfectly.
Jake (08:14)
I know.
It’s interesting to talk about this kind of on this podcast, but I know that I have had a similar experience where sometimes you get those and it’s just like, it takes so much more work to try to make something work that’s not meant to be, you know? You’re gonna work so much harder and then end up with unsatisfied people on both ends, you know? And it’s not good for them and it’s not good for you. And it’s like, it’s easier to just be like, hey, you should go a different direction. Or like you mentioned scale.
Kerri Glover (08:28)
Yes.
Yes.
Jake (08:42)
with all the different things that I work on as well, it’s also something that we offer. It’s like we can scale from one player, I’ll play solo shows, or we can do dueling shows, and we can do dueling in all kinds of different levels. So I totally understand that, that makes a lot of sense. Very, very interesting. So what is the, what is like a really memorable touching moment that you got to witness
an event that you were on.
Kerri Glover (09:10)
Oh wow, there’s so many, gosh.
It’s really hard to choose. I would say, honestly, for me, especially at Maison, I guess I go back to my venue and give an example, because I definitely witnessed a lot of weddings there or been a part of. We come from the point of being a yes venue, right? So I’ve definitely worked with a lot of different kinds of venues, some venues are no venues, like they love their rules, they’re right up front about it, they mostly say no to everything, and they like to be very restrictive. That’s totally a vibe.
that’s, you know, totally completely up to the owners. We generally work with and create yes venues, venues that have like major flexibility for their clients. Not only do we feel like this approaches a wedding in the correct way, allowing clients to step into the space and design the way they want to, but it also reaches this generation of engaged couples that really want something that’s unique for their day. At Maison, we’ve had so many wacky, fun, emotional,
because we’ve allowed our clients to do literally whatever they want. That’s, it’s also not illegal, you know? They can do whatever it is that they would like to do. So I think I mentioned this in the last podcast, but we’ve had a wedding where we had a llama as a groomsman. We’ve had, like, we had a wedding actually recently that was really sweet. It was during the eclipse. And so they had their wedding outside,
taken all of our rugs out of the mansion and set up a whole picnic around for all their guests out in our circular garden with picnic baskets for all the guests with those goodies to snack on while the eclipse happened. So they were like sitting outside and like they’re in the dark in the middle of the afternoon and it was like a very magic moment but it’s what the couple traveled I think from Arizona if I’m not mistaken all the way to Western New York because we were in the path of the eclipse in order to have their wedding there.
and we were able to like make all their dreams come true, whatever they wanted, you know? I think moments like that are really important to us because we feel like, you know, it should be designed how they want to. And I mean, having a picnic at four o’clock in the afternoon, no other wedding’s done that. It just makes sense for the eclipse, you know? You know, we’ve had animals in weddings and we’ve had special cars driven onto our property, couples have come in on horseback, you know, we’ve done very, like, religious.
Jake (11:23)
Yeah.
Kerri Glover (11:36)
weddings at our venue because we’re so large, we can do things that allow for different kinds of religious, respectful religious traditions where the, like, for example we had a Pakistani wedding where the ladies are separate from the gentlemen and they had entirely separate receptions that we were running simultaneously because in their culture they don’t mix during the reception. So our venue is very unique. We actually pipe and draped between two spaces so they didn’t see each other. But we were able to share the restrooms. I mean it was, it was very,
Jake (11:54)
Oh wow.
Kerri Glover (12:05)
It’s very cool, again, flexibility, providing what it is the client wants. I think those are really touching because they see that we’re bending over backwards to make their day amazing, what they want.
Jake (12:16)
Yeah.
And just like thinking about like some of the things that you talked about and having looked at the videos on the website of your venue, it just looks like such a fairy tale kind of place. Like I can totally see the cars and like the horses coming in. Like it’s just so gorgeous. Like I totally see how that makes sense and works at that venue. That’s awesome. So, um, with all of that being said, and talking about being a yes venue and wanting people to do all these things, this question just kind of came to me because I’m very curious to see the answer to this.
Kerri Glover (12:27)
Thanks.
Thank you.
You might be seeing more than you asked for.
Jake (12:45)
What is something that came up that you had to be like, no, I’m sorry. You can’t, you can’t repaint the outside of the venue black. Like, no, you know, what’s, what are some of the craziest things people have asked for that you’re just like, no, you can’t, I’m sorry.
Kerri Glover (12:54)
Yeah.
We had a client ask us, we have like a terrace outside of our ballroom that’s about 5,000 square feet. It’s massive, it’s like a half circle shape. She wanted us to repaint all of our gravel white, like physically paint the gravel for her wedding. We were like…
but at our expense. So honestly, if she had said, like, I want to have the gravel painted, I’ll pay for it, we probably would have said yes, but she wanted us to pay for it, so we actually looked into the pricing and it was like $8,000 to do. Yeah, it’s not really gonna work, I’m sorry. Yeah, like literally paint the gravel. She wanted it to be white.
Jake (13:34)
How do you paint? Like just walk through with a sprayer? Like…
Huh, okay.
Kerri Glover (13:42)
You know, so what we did as a compromise is we took all of our lawn furniture that needed to be all of our iron lawn furniture that needed to be repainted white anyway and spray painted it on the gravel. So like the offshoot of that paint fell onto the gravel so it was like a lighter color. It just wasn’t like universally white. And she was pretty happy with that. So that’s what we did as a compromise. But I’m like, I can’t… She wanted us to like take the gravel and wash it in white paint. Like it would have been like atrociously expensive. Right, because you couldn’t…
Jake (14:09)
Oh, like fully white, like white white.
Kerri Glover (14:12)
after COVID, we couldn’t even buy the supplies. We couldn’t even buy the rock that looked like what she wanted. It was like not available. So she wanted us to whitewash the gravel. So yeah, we tried our best and she actually was pretty happy with it. It looks really white in the pictures. Yeah, yeah I know. Bizarre.
Jake (14:28)
Huh, that’s interesting. That’s crazy. Is there anything else that’s come up that you had to say like absolutely no to?
Kerri Glover (14:35)
I’m trying to think. I can’t think of anything else. Honestly, we say yes to almost everything. I can’t think of anything. No.
Jake (14:41)
Yeah. I know, because I’m thinking about it from my perspective and I know that I’ve had requests for things that I’m just like, you’re not being serious, right? But I can’t think of any of the times when people have asked for things like that.
Kerri Glover (14:51)
I’m sorry.
I know, I can’t think of one where we said no. It’s been very, I don’t know, we just wanna make it happen if we can. Yeah.
Jake (15:04)
randomly. I mean this isn’t this isn’t event related but the only thing that I can think of is I used to work
I used to work in aviation. I’m going to try to be vague about this, but I used to work in aviation and I had a guy that got extremely upset because he wanted to get on a plane that the brakes were broken and like, like leaking brake fluid onto the ramp. And he was like, no, I want to fly. Like, I want to go to where I’m going. And we were like, no, like, I’m sorry. Like, what?
Kerri Glover (15:35)
I’m gonna die today, so no, I’m good.
Jake (15:37)
Yeah, it was like no one else is the pilots aren’t gonna get on that plane like and he was very upset and very demanding about it He’s like no you need to take me to them. It’s like I’m sorry sir like no, you’re not no one else is gonna die on a plane because You and I was like, do you want me to show you any we walked out and showed him? We’re like, look, do you see the brake fluid on the ground like? It’s not gonna go well for anyone like so
Kerri Glover (15:59)
Yeah, I would say anytime it was like a safety thing, we would say no. But we haven’t had anyone approach us that we couldn’t do something safe. I mean, even when they want fireworks or something, we have a licensed gentleman who can do a fireworks show over our pond from the island. Like, yeah, we can do pretty much anything. We’ve got a guy for that, you know, or a lady for that. Yeah.
Jake (16:20)
That’s awesome. That’s amazing. So what is something that you do to stay up on current trends that are going on in the wedding industry?
Kerri Glover (16:31)
I would say like I immerse myself in wedding media, of course social media. I manage something like 39 social media accounts right now so I definitely like am very engrossed in what the trends are happening online. But of course I read like wedding mags and blogs and such. However, I would say my best source of wedding trends is actually talking to the two to four hundred couples I speak to a day because they give me things, they share Pinterest boards and I’m like well that’s hot, I love that idea, you know.
And so it’s, I don’t know, that’s fun. I also do some time, like use my old event planning skills to do productions at our own venue, we call Maison Productions, and then I design them myself. That gives me a chance to dive back into like, what’s going on right now? You know, what’s trendy? What can we do that’s kind of new that people in our area haven’t seen? So that keeps me kind of abreast of it as well.
Jake (17:18)
Interesting yeah, I think that makes sense you basically live breathe and eat events and weddings, so I all the people you’re like they Yeah so
Kerri Glover (17:24)
Yeah, that’s all I do. Yeah, exactly.
And I have such amazing teams that I can like text, message, and be like, look how cute this is, you know? Or I get my husband into it too, and he just gets nuts. I mean, my husband’s a really big romantic, which comes in handy working at events. So I’ll send him like a wedding video or something. I’m like, look at this gorgeous video. You know, we just got shared and he’ll be like crying. He tears, he doesn’t even know the people. He’s just a softie. So that’s fun. He’s like, well, so good, you know?
Jake (17:50)
He’s like, I just love them so much.
awesome I love it that’s great I feel like that’s also fairly true of most people that I’ve met in that do events and weddings is like people that do this kind of stuff just love it like we love the party we love the like the special moments like everyone is always just like oh look at what they did like this is so cool and it’s like people you don’t know like means nothing you know but like it’s cool still like yeah
Kerri Glover (17:55)
I’m sorry.
Yeah.
Yeah. I know, you don’t know. Whatever, it doesn’t matter.
They’re still like, they’re taking this jump, they’re saying they love each other in front of all these people, and they’re subjecting themselves to a very emotional day that’s expensive, and it’s a lot, and they’re doing it because they love each other, and they can’t help but scream it out loud, and that’s really touching. Whenever I’m training a new staff member, like interns to event directors, to wedding venue directors, they always ask me, what’s the best time of the day? And I’m fluffing the bride’s dress, that there’s a bride,
aisle or you know, just proofing up one of the grooms and sending him down the aisle and you see them like walk into there forever. That’s like, you’re part of that special moment. It’s like being at a birth. It’s hard to like not forget all those couples that you sent down the aisle and like, you know, we stay friends with them. I’m friends with some of the ladies and gentlemen at those weddings I’ve planned like when I was a wedding planner and they’ve had babies and you know, they have life. I get to see all that happen. I know it was a part of the beginning.
Jake (19:00)
Yeah.
Kerri Glover (19:18)
that’s really special. We’re very lucky to work in this industry, the business of love as I say.
Jake (19:19)
That’s so cool. That’s awesome.
Yeah. Before I start asking you about like, just the general specifics about your venue, like I have asked about my Pineapple Chapel last time, are there any things that are unique or special about your venue that we haven’t touched on yet? Other than like, you know, capacity and things like that.
Kerri Glover (19:33)
Sure.
Yeah, our venue is really special because it’s a true weekend or week long venue. We are very popular for entire weekend weddings because our venue is so large and I’ve designed the venue specifically to have a whole bunch of different very unique spaces. One of the coolest things about our venue is you can come, have your rehearsal dinner or intimate garden, have your wedding ceremony the next day in our great lawn, have our reception in the ballroom, dance on the ballroom patio.
your Sunday brunch in the secret garden or the circular garden. We have all these different spaces that we’ve designed so that you can keep your guests really excited and interested and create completely different events all weekend. So I’d say that’s something that I’m really proud of because not all venues have that kind of flexibility and diversity. We also have a lot of authenticity in our venue because there’s so many historical elements that are so cool, which are really fun to go sight tours for because people who are history buffs or love anything old.
super geek out on it, like me too, I love old stuff, so it’s really fun to give the tours there.
Jake (20:46)
That’s awesome. So with full weekend kind of events that you guys put on, what is the lodging like? Do you guys have space for people to stay? Or is it in the town around?
Kerri Glover (20:55)
Sure.
We do actually, we have four, yeah, we have four bed and breakfast rooms in the mansion itself that you can see and we serve fabulous French breakfast for those guests. We also have six glamping tents, so we can house up to like an additional 36 to 42 people in those six glamping tents on our property. And then nearby, within 12 driving minutes, we have more than 100 hotel rooms, some of them very high end, some of them very affordable.
It’s a great range of accommodations, like really close by. My favorite is when they host like couples who are like Manhattanites or from, you know, LA or whatever the case is, because you see all these people wandering around their high heels and like petting the cows across the street and like stuff like that. They just love it, like more than anybody. So it’s really fun to see them and they love the small town. We’re located in a town that’s like a Hallmark movie. Like literally they can shoot a Hallmark movie there.
Jake (21:53)
I was just gonna say it’s like a Hallmark film. Ha ha ha.
Kerri Glover (21:54)
little storefronts. Oh yeah, oh my god, it’s such a Hallmark movie. It’s insane, it’s so cute. And so we’re very spoiled. It’s a very healthy, vibrant town. And so they can come and they can plan like all these fun events for their guests in town. And they have this like completely Hallmark moment. And we’re also a destination for week-long events like conferences or really week-long, true events that people want to come, family reunions. And there’s so much to do. We’re also on the Erie Canal.
So there’s an end on the lake, Lake Ontario. So you can have all kinds of boating, fishing activities. There’s just a ton to do in our area. So we’re very spoiled. It’s a great location.
Jake (22:35)
That’s amazing. And now I might be getting myself in trouble here because we haven’t talked about these questions ahead of time. And I don’t know if I’m putting you in a bad spot by asking, but like, do you guys do tours on like with boats and like fishing excursions and things like that? I mean, cause I’m just like, now, yeah. Wow.
Kerri Glover (22:41)
That’s okay.
We can arrange all of that. Yeah, absolutely. We can arrange all of that. We have partners to do all of those things. So we’ve arranged those for sure for our clients in the past. Yeah, that’s fun. Yes, Jake, you’re totally welcome. You totally can come stay. It’s really pretty. Oh my gosh, Jake, that grand piano is just waiting for you. Totally.
Jake (22:58)
That’s super cool. This is, can I just come stay there for a while? Cause like, I can, I can, I’ll play the piano for the guests. It’s fine. I’ll play piano during, during brunch. It’ll be great.
Kerri Glover (23:17)
Oh, I would love that.
Jake (23:18)
just the resident like, you’re like, who’s he? Oh, that’s Jake. He lives out in one of the tents over there. Ha ha ha.
Kerri Glover (23:21)
I know, that’s Jake. He’s a permaclampor.
Jake (23:26)
Yeah.
Kerri Glover (23:27)
I love it.
Jake (23:28)
Okay, so to the to the speed round of the actual logistics for people listening and wanting to book the venue I know we’ve touched on a lot of things already But what is the availability and flexibility like how far out do people need to book how available are you guys?
Kerri Glover (23:33)
Okay.
We’re super available in what we call our off season. So like November to April, we actually offer pretty good, great discounts because we’re in an area where like, you know, May through November is like the wedding season. So if you book outside of that season, we have great availability. In season, I would say you wanna book at least a year in advance. For October, it’s more like a year and a half in advance. Like our October 2025 is getting very close to sold out already. And we’re in April of this year.
2026 reservations as well. Fall in Western New York is like gorgeous, you know. We have our own forest on the property, so the leaves changing are just like epic. We buy like 300 gourds or something and put them all over the property, so it’s just like a fall experience. It’s like super gorgeous. And so we’re super popular for that. So I would say about a year and a half in advance, if you’re in wedding season, that’s a good measure.
Sometimes we have some great dates that just open up or whatever the case is. Or if you don’t mind a weekday, you can book us anytime. I know we have that.
Jake (24:45)
So what is the average event size and cost at your venue?
Kerri Glover (24:49)
Sure, I would say average event size about 120 guests. We have the capacity for 299, 300, but most of our weddings are 120. Our costs range from 5,000 to $8,000 for a site fee for the day, and that includes access from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., our staff that sets up and shuts down your whole wedding, tables and chairs, inside and outside on our property,
And then, you know, access of course, exclusively to the mansion. So gorgeous getting ready spaces for the ladies, for the gentlemen, you know, movie theater. And if you decide to stay overnight with us, which is a bit of an add on, you could have a late night event until 2 a.m. in either our speakeasy or in our billiard room, which is really fun, I know. So lots of really fun options there. Most of our couples, you know, book, you know, an overnight.
Jake (25:36)
Ahem.
Kerri Glover (25:42)
and a day so they end up spending between like eight thousand and nine thousand dollars with us about.
Jake (25:46)
Wow, that is so cool. I wanna, now I have to see the pictures of Speakeasy. That sounds amazing.
Kerri Glover (25:51)
Oh yeah, we don’t really have a lot of photos of it online. It’s because it’s hidden in our mansion. Yeah, yeah, you can’t find it unless you know somebody who knows where it is. It’s definitely hidden. It’s really cool. Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Jake (25:55)
because it’s a speakeasy.
That’s so cool. I love Speakeasy bars. The coolest one, and I won’t get too sidetracked, but the coolest one I went to was in Milan. It was, yeah, it was a crazy experience. Yeah, it was the hardest.
Kerri Glover (26:12)
Cool. You have to send me the name, we love Milan, so I’d love to go check it out.
Jake (26:20)
to get into and find speakeasy that I’ve ever been to. Like, the end of the story, I ended up on this patio of this what I thought was what looked like a restaurant that was closed on some random dark street in Milan where I don’t speak Italian. I’m just like standing here in this dark after I’d walked up the street three or four times. And…
like I’m just kind of like looking around and this dude behind me is like says something and I’m like Oh my gosh, and I just said the word that took the secret word to get in and he’s like, okay Push the button and I like push this button walked into this fake dark restaurant And then there was another door. It was it was crazy You had to answer like multiple riddles that were all in Italian. It took me a long time to fit. Yeah, it was intense It was really cool It’s very cool
Kerri Glover (26:44)
Yeah.
That’s crazy.
What?
That’s amazing. There’s a really, really cool one in Manhattan, if you guys ever visit Manhattan. It’s called Little Branch, and it’s been a speakeasy since prohibition. And you have to register and get a password. It’s really hard to find. It is truly authentic, and they have a jazz trio that plays in there like every night. It’s just, you can only order the bar through emotion. You can’t order a drink. You just tell them the emotion you’re feeling, and then they serve you a drink that matches that.
Jake (27:36)
Huh, I could sit and talk about this for so long. One more, since you said that, I just was in Prague and they have a really famous speakeasy there that you order by Inkblot. And…
Kerri Glover (27:37)
It’s so cool.
I’m sorry.
Oh my gosh, what?
Jake (27:53)
Yeah, it was, yeah, so that was really crazy too. Anyways, back to your venue. You have a speakeasy, very cool, love that. What is the deposit and cancellation policy?
Kerri Glover (27:59)
Okay. Yes.
Sure.
Actually we’re super flexible on that. We normally ask for about 25% of whatever you’ve selected down and then you make interest free monthly payments up until 60 days before the wedding. So basically we finance your wedding for you at no cost. Some of, we also offer a 10% paid in full discount. So clients have the cash and they want to take advantage of the discount, we offer them that as well. But for some of our clients who are working on a much stricter budget, we can offer something as low as like a thousand or $2,000 as their first payment.
and then break up the monthly payments from there. We just want to make sure it works for them and they’re not overwhelmed by all those big preservation fees they have to make right up front.
Jake (28:46)
sure. Do you have an in-house catering service or do people have to provide their own catering? Okay.
Kerri Glover (28:49)
We don’t. They bring their own catering. They can work with any professional caterer or food truck that they prefer.
So we work with, we see every different kind of wedding, which is great for especially like weddings that have a lot of like diversity and like a different background. Like you could work with a kosher caterer at our venue who cooks at a kosher kitchen offsite and serves at her property. Things like that are hard to find. We host a lot of Indian weddings, indie weddings and they have specific caters they wanna work with and a lot of venues aren’t open to that and we are.
Jake (28:57)
Okay.
Yeah.
Kerri Glover (29:22)
gorgeous, beautiful weddings that are venue. They’re so full of sparkle.
Jake (29:26)
So speaking of that idea, do you have a preferred vendor list and do you require that people use them?
Kerri Glover (29:31)
We do have a preferred vendor list. These are like, we call them our party partners and they’re amazingly vetted. They do a lot of events at our venue. We trust them, our clients trust them, but they by no means have to use them. We’re not restricted that way.
Jake (29:44)
Okay. What is the maximum capacity of the venue for both ceremony and reception?
Kerri Glover (29:50)
$299. Just under that 300 mark.
Jake (29:55)
Um, so based on the fact that you said people can stay overnight, I’m assuming that there’s a designated bridal suite as well.
Kerri Glover (30:02)
We have a bridal suite, a bridesmaid suite that are right across the hall from each other. So we actually, ladies have actually the whole top floor to get ready in. And there’s the additional bed and breakfast rooms too. Tons of space to get ready. And it’s like the bridesmaid suite is inspired by Maria and Tuanette’s apartments at Versailles. So it’s like super gorgeous over the top. Five makeup stations. Really beautiful. The gentlemen have the gentlemen’s lounge that we built for them was the original cigar room of the mansion and the billiards room and movie theater downstairs.
Loads of room for the guys who’ve vintage video games and poker table and 1940s pool table. So fun.
Jake (30:38)
Awesome, that sounds super fun. Um, is there any noise ordinances or curfews to be aware of? I know you said things end at 11 unless they stay overnight and then it’s 2.
Kerri Glover (30:47)
right.
And that’s really just for our staff and their time. But if you have an after party till 2 a.m., that’s fine as well. If you’ve had an event, luckily our only neighbors are actually, it’s only farmland around us, so we don’t have any neighbors, so that’s really nice. If you have an event outside and you wanna be rocking it till midnight out in the secret garden, it’s totally fine. We just let our one neighbor across the street who loves us, we love him, it’s a love, love situation. Just let him know we’re gonna have an after party.
But he claims to have never even heard of an event in our venue, because we’re so far apart from each other. So we’re in a very remote location, fortunately. It’s very private for our clients.
Jake (31:28)
That’s awesome. So, for Day of coordination, is there an event coordinator or manager on site during the wedding day?
Kerri Glover (31:35)
We actually have an event venue director, and then she has a whole staff that she manages. So there’s event techs, we have assistants, all kinds of things that really run the day. However, we work with wedding planners all the time, and we highly encourage them, especially for weddings that have more than like 100 people. We don’t require them, but we highly encourage them because they can really focus on like the design aspect of the wedding and all those details execution. Whereas our team’s in charge of making sure that the wedding’s set up and shut down properly.
the wedding party is pampered, things like that. So it’s a balancing act between all offenders.
Jake (32:12)
So I know that you mentioned that there was a special offer for listening to this podcast and it’s two complimentary wedding upgrades for any new signed clients that mention the podcast worth up to a thousand dollars. Awesome.
Kerri Glover (32:17)
Is that what you…
Yeah.
We have really amazing, we have five pages of wedding upgrades you can do at Maison that include everything from like a beer burro, like we can have a mini donkey serving beers at your cocktail reception, we have magicians, we have a 1952 MG that’s red and gorgeous, her name’s Ruby, so you could have her out there to drive you down the ceremony or have her pictures, all kinds of fun things, farm tables that we’ve had custom made for our wedding night. So there’s lots of upgrades and if you mention this podcast,
give you whatever two you choose for free.
Jake (32:55)
That is amazing. So go get your beer burro, get it, get it, have it. It’ll be so much fun. Such a good idea.
Kerri Glover (33:02)
He’s the noisiest bartender ever.
He’s funny.
Jake (33:10)
Amazing. I know we talked a little bit more about farm animals in the last podcast, so if you haven’t checked that one out, go listen to the Maui Pineapple Chapel podcast that I did with Kerri. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that we didn’t touch on today that you want to chat about? Awesome.
Kerri Glover (33:22)
I don’t think so. I really appreciate you having me here Jake and yeah it’s been really fun to talk about my venue.
Jake (33:29)
Yes, I would love to see it. I think we need to book dueling pianos there so that I can go. Ha ha ha.
Kerri Glover (33:32)
You’re welcome, totally. Oh my God, that would be such a fun event. Everyone come from all over at our venue to see Dueling Pianos, they love it. Ha ha ha.
Jake (33:42)
You know, we could do like a public event. That’d be a fun thing. I’m just putting it out there. That would be super fun. Yeah. Anyways, thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to potentially our next podcast. We could do a whole series of these about all of your venues everywhere. Yes, thank you. I appreciate it.
Kerri Glover (33:44)
Yes, 100%. Yeah, they’d love it. It’d be super fun. Ha ha.
Thanks, Jake.
Have a good one.
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