In this weeks Wedding Venue Stories, Maison Albion, Kerri Glover shares some insight on what its like to own a New York wedding venue. Maison Albion is a historic mansion hosting magnificent weddings and events. Located in Albion, New York visitors are transported to a time of luxurious craftsmanship, baroque decadence, and lavish celebrations. The 1878 mansion is accompanied by a breathtaking ballroom and parklike grounds reminiscent of a late 19th century French cottage.
The English Country gardens welcome guests to stroll and lounge on the manicured lawn. You can enjoy a picnic in the Great Lawn, indulge in a romantic dinner in the Secret Garden, and even cozy up with your beloved in the handcrafted rowboat floating gently in the pond. Guests also have the option to stay overnight in four exquisitely decorated guest bedrooms with access to amazing restaurants, hotels and businesses within minutes of Maison Albion.
Albion is a village in Orleans County, New York, about an hour east of Niagara Falls. New York hosts 56,000 weddings a year and ranks 4th in the country! When you mention New York most often people think of NYC but there is so much more to this beautiful state. December 5th to Dec. 8th we will host a Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation to Niagara Falls & Buffalo. We will get to explore some of the beautiful wedding venues in Niagara Falls. Wedding venue owners will get to connect and explore the area. Keep reading for an interview with Kerri Glover and to view lots of beautiful images of the Maison Albion. Please share some comments in the section below and if you would like to be featured in an upcoming Wedding Venue Stories, send me an email, didi@weddingvenueowners.com.
Why did you decide to start a wedding venue? (for managers) How did you get into the wedding industry?
“I have been fortunate to build, design, and launch thirteen wedding venues for other owners and investors. My husband and I wanted to find a historic property that we could take care of through revenue of a wedding and event venue. Maison Albion was born!”
How long have you been operating a venue?
“We bought the property in July of 2020 and began the restoration process soon after. We had our first event December 2020 and have been operating as a venue since December!”
WEDDING VENUE OWNERS WORKING VACATION: Washington DC, Houston, Niagara Falls
Get off your wedding island of solitude, join supportive wedding venue owners as we visit a gorgeous city, tour wedding venues & learn directly from successful wedding venue owners. Competition DOES NOT EXIST on a Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacation. Your venue owner colleagues want to meet you and connect! Click here for upcoming cities and dates.
Please share the story behind your venue name or how you came up with the name.
“Maison” translates to “house” or “home” in French. Our venue is very elegant, but cozy like a home. The area in which our venue is located was originally settled by the French. Bringing French influence to our design and branding was a dream come true for a Francophile like me!
What do you like best about being a venue owner/mgr?
“I love being the host for so many important events. Weddings, graduation parties, showers – we are honored to create so many memories here for so many families!”
Please share your experience about how much effort & cost goes into running a venue. Things that couples and start up venues may not be aware of. (heating, cooling, adv, landscaping, staff, insurance, etc…).
“The staff, landscaping, utilities, professional services of course are all big costs with running avenue. I think for venue owners, considering salability. Your fixed costs are much more painful in the first 1.5 years while you are building your reputation. Plus, there are a lot of first time costs, like construction, permitting, etc. that you have to be prepared to manage financially before you really have a steady stream of income.”
Do you have any tips on social media marketing: which options work best, how to get content from photographers (couples), do you use TickTok? Any social media tips or marketing advice you can offer would be appreciated.
“My husband and I actually run a wedding marketing firm – Flourish – NowWeFlourish.com and we have oodles of tips and tricks we could share. We speak at conferences and have many clients, other venue owners and wedding service companies with their marketing strategy, management of marketing channels, branding, website design, etc. Let me know if you have a specific topic you would like me to cover!”
Do you have any time saving tips that are worth the investment?
“A customer management system is always worth the investment if you can find one that manages an automated workflow and contact points with your clients for you!”
Does your venue have special regulations or hours for your event rental parties? Any policies that you have to enforce that another wedding venue may not? If so, how do help your couples work around these special requirements? (Sound ordinances, limited hours, limited parking, alc. restrictions)
“We require our parties end at midnight, but we do also have a bed and breakfast option, that includes a late night speakeasy!! Laws in our state allow liquor service to go until 2am, so this allows our clients to entertain a more intimate group for an after party.”
How many weddings do you host each year? “Our goal is 80-100 a year”
What sets your venue apart from other options? “We are a historic mansion with French flair! We attract couples who love old things and appreciate the effort we have put not just into renovating the space but restoring its historic details.”
Do you host wedding shows, open houses?
“No, we currently do not. We do however, host several event open to the entire community during the year – A French Market in April and October, a Family Fourth of July, and a Fête de Nöel, our holiday event. We give tours of our property during those events and have marketing materials available. You never know where your next client may come from!”
Please share some tips on providing great venue tours for potential clients? What materials do you provide on tours? How do you avoid or reduce no shows? How do you follow up after a venue tour?
“We also have on-brand sweets and fruit available, water, coffee, and Moscato chilling for our site tour guests. We begin the site tour by asking the guests 10-12 high level questions about their wedding plans. This way, we can personalize the site tour to match their needs, and it allows us to highlight features important to that couple. We follow up 1-2 days after a site tour. Then again 2-3 days after that. We confirm all site tours the day before via text message. Most clients who do want to cancel inform us then!”
Please share any costly errors or regrets you may have learned from over the years. “Make sure that before you purchase a property that is currently not a wedding and event venue, you meet with the code enforcement officer and planning board to make sure the town will be receptive to a zoning change.”
Wedding Venue Contracts, Wedding Venue Buy Sell Trade, Wedding Associations & Wedding Shows & Events
These are all our new pages under Wedding Venue Resources! Please help us add tons of great resources for these pages. Send me info on the wedding shows in your area, the wedding associations or networks and/or the items you need or want to sell. We even list wedding industry jobs and career positions. Email didi@weddingvenueowners.com
Do you have any tips on contract development, any wording or clauses that help you the most?
“I’m also studying law, in order to serve our wedding clients more entirely in their pursuit for a strong legal stance and protection for their venues. I will be an attorney in 2022 and can assist with this even more then! Contractual language is dependent on the jurisdiction, so it’s hard to advise on blanket language. Make sure your cancellation clause is VERY clear. Call your deposit a “reservation fee”.
Do you have a great website? Tips on website design or features that help you attract, book clients?
“Well, we think so!! We love our interactive chat feature, our blog for SEO improvement, and fresh photography! The back end of our website (SEO Optimization) is where we really shine bringing customers to our website.”
Building client relationships – how do you build up your client relationships?
“We send our newly signed client a gift box that is personalized and branded with gifts from our venue. Then we have automated client touchpoints during the planning process sharing planning tips, tricks, and recipes, fun items, etc. Just to let them know they are top of mind for us! We also invite them back for a walkthrough before their wedding, interactive floor plan meeting, and more.”
Do you have any stories of chaos you can share, something unexpected that happened during a wedding or event?
“I was a wedding planner for 18 years while I was building wedding venues – so many fun stories to share!! I sewed a faux French bustle in a Vera Wang off the runway gown once to cover a red wine stain. I used a bear bomb created from a paper bag, peanut butter and pepper to discourage a brown bear from approaching a deck full of wedding guests. So many fun times!”
Do you have any tips you would like to share with other venue owners?
“When it feels like no one is booking, and you have hit the sahara of leads, mix things up! Create a promotion with something only you can offer. For example, we are offering a luxe picnic date for two and mini photo shoot on our grounds with any booking by the end of May over $1,000. What an easy promo for us, and a fun way to share our venue with a newly booked client!”
Do you have any thoughts or solutions to share regarding Covid19?
“We were fortunate to be restoring during COVID, so 2021 and 2022 look fab for us!!”
Any advice to anyone thinking of starting a venue or wanting to be in the wedding industry?
“Make sure you have enough cash to operate without any income for at least a year. Hire a Rockstar marketing team. Be ready to ride the rollercoaster. Enjoy all the love you get to be a part of.”
What are some wedding trends or traditions in your city, town or state that come up at many weddings?
“Weddings are very large in our area, and we are fortunate to be able to host very large events at our venue. Allowing flexibility for our clients to bring in whatever catering company they prefer welcomes clients of diverse backgrounds to celebrate with us and enjoy the food of their culture.”
What are your couples top ten Fav parts/characteristics of your venue?
1. Our stunning mansion and grounds, of course!
2. Our flexibility in vendor use/selection.
3. Our getting ready areas for the ladies and gentlemen are extensive.
4. Our grounds are inspired by English Country gardens and they are picture perfect!
5. We offer four bed and breakfast rooms complete with a full French breakfast.
6. Our location halfway between two major metropolises (Buffalo and Rochester).
7. We only allow one event per day. Our clients have entire use of the venue form 10am to 1 am.
8. Our darling details – our signature scent, hidden antique love letters all over the mansion, and fresh flowers delivered weekly.
9. Our service, our amazing team, and our strong sense of service and hospitality.
10. WE HONOR LOVE. It’s fun, we are honored to be a part of it.
How often do you have contract issues come up from a client? How do you handle this?
“We rarely have a client who wants to amend a contract. As long as it doesn’t affect the legal content of the contract, we consider them.”
How do you handle children at your venue, do you discourage/encourage children? Please share some insight.
“We have a great movie theater that we encourage our clients to use as a kids room during a reception if they have a bunch of kiddos in the wedding with a sitter!”
“Do you host styled shoots? If so please provide some tips on setting these up, or how you use these for promotion. We love hosting styled shoots at our venue! We do them free of charge for all our vendors, and we cater lunch for the day! We have found that people in our area love participating in them to create beautiful content. We also sponsor the cost of professional models when requested.”
Thank you so much Kerri Glover, we appreciate you sharing your Wedding Venue Story! If you would like to learn more about this venue you can find them online here: MaisonAlbion.com, Facebook, Instagram.
Special thanks to the talented photographers who allowed us to share their work. Please support your local photographers by sharing their work on your pages, promoting them to your couples, linking their sites on your preferred vendor lists and ALWAYS giving them credit in the images you share! This is vital to ensure our photographers get the recognition they deserve. Making sure I properly credit every photographer image on our blogs and website is very important to me, if I have an image featured that does not have proper credit, please email didi@weddingvenueowners.com so that I can credit your image. This goes for vendors too, if you were part of a styled shoot and I do not have you listed, just send me your information and I will add your business to the image. Thank you all for being part of a supportive, professional wedding community.
