? for Belle Mer Brides on the "Little Things"

Re: ? for Belle Mer Brides on the "Little Things"

• devcipps

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  I LOVE your Jones Soda idea!

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• SummerBoston10

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  Here are my thoughts.  You will pay a markup on any service booked through Belle Mer plus you will pay tax and their 18% administrative fee on the value of those items.  You would not be required to pay any type of vendor fee for any of the stuff you mentioned if you brought it in yourself.  Belle Mer will do all of the setup of those items at no additional charge and exactly to your specifications so all you would have to do is drop the stuff off at Belle Mer in the timeframe specified in the contract.  I think that you might be using your Event Minimum dollars more wisely by booking the bigger vendors through them since those are the ones they charge the vendor fee on if they are not booked through Belle Mer.  Just my opinion though!

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• JessiTess member

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  Thanks ladies.
  
  Regarding the vendor fees versus the mark ups - my thought process for the pricier vendors (ie photographer and band) was that if 18% of their fee would equal more than $500 (the fee to bring in an outside vendor), then I would bring them in on my own.  I realize that the 18% is on the whole pot, not just vendor by vendor, but that was my original rational.
  
  Some of the food options we are planning on (sushi, open bar, signature drink) will equate to a high per person cost, so most likely I will not need to put everything through them to meet the minimum. 
  
  SummerBoston10 , do you know if Belle Mer does in fact do all the "extra" set up for free? I'm concerned about last minute stress transporting fragile containers of liquid, which makes me wonder if the extra fees might be worth less stress.
  

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• AmyRI member

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  Not related to Belle Mer, but I'm pretty sure you can't give out alcoholic beverages as favors. It's illegal in the state of RI. It was specified in my contract for my 2009 wedding, so before you order the bottles of wine, I would see if the law has changed.

  
  
  

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• JessiTess member

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  Thanks I will look into that.  This is the first I have heard of this law.  There are vineyards in RI that even make custom wine bottles meant to be favors.  But I will do some research.

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• SummerBoston10

  

  January 2010 edited December 2011

  Yes, I know that Belle Mer will do the set up for free.  Your contract should specify the time period that you can drop stuff off, etc. 
  
  My goal is to get my bill with Belle Mer as close to the Event Minimum as possible.  If you are just reaching your Event Minimum it doesn't really matter what you put in there since the bill will be the same.  But, like I said, you wouldn't be charged a vendor fee, the admin fee, tax, etc. on stuff like favors if you just drop them off so you might want to re-think that.  But with that said, I totally understand that it is worth $$ to not be stressed so if there are things that you want to do which require a lot of work then having Belle Mer help with it may not be a bad thing.  For example, I will probably do some linen rentals.  I don't need this to go into my Event Minimum and I could pick them up myself and bring them down there but I can't be bothered.  I would rather pay the markup and have Belle Mer deal with it all and deal with counting it at the end of the night, returning it, etc.  That is worth the markup and extra money to me!
  

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