Be Our Guest on Rentals

When Jen Hawkins of Boston-based Jen Hawkins Events needed to stage an elegant Maine wedding at the foot of Mount Desert Island near Bar Harbor, she turned to her favorite vendor for help: Be Our Guest, a Boston-based service company that offers high-end event rentals.

“I hold them in such high regard because they have such outstanding customer service,” Hawkins notes.

Be Our Guest loaded-up two trucks with everything Hawkins needed to stage her client’s subtle, yet elegant Maine wedding, which included 15-handmade, drum-shaped lampshades to fit over the chandeliers in the dinner tent. Be Our Guest made the shades from imported Turkish linen to coordinate with the custom linen tablecloths.

“They don’t just take an order, they become a partner,” Hawkins said.

Such praise seems justified for this flourishing, 26-year old company that employs 140 people, owns four warehouses and one showroom. Be Our Guest works directly with a bride’s event planner, caterer, hotel or venue.  “This allows us to work on as many as 200 large-scale events at the same time,” said Simone Williamson, the company’s co-owner.  And among its clientele the company has developed a reputation for offering cutting-edge rental items event professionals want to use.

For instance, Williamson lists four chairs that are very popular right now: the Astor (a mahogany chair she called “wonderful for dining”), Mission (named after its high back) and more modern styles like the Crystal Flex and Bellini.

When it comes to tables the company can send over any size or shape, including more custom looks like low-to-the-ground wooden tables for a Moroccan-style affair. And if it doesn’t have the table you want in a warehouse, Be Our Guest will make it.

When Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady hosted a Fourth of July party, he wanted a 26-foot-long, white-washed wooden table for his deck.  After the party, Brady liked the table so much he bought it.

“That was good because we needed a crane to get it onto his deck,” laughs Charles Driggs, Be Our Guest’s General Manager, who was happy he didn’t have to pay for a crane to take the table off of Brady’s deck.

The company designs much of its own china, rents 28 styles of glassware and 17 styles of flatware.  Their neon cosmo glasses and diamond-cut martini glasses are current favorites, as are several new lines of flatware with enamel handles.

Williamson admits if her company can be faulted for anything, it’s for over-servicing a client, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

In fact, that’s what Michele Mottola, owner of Michele Mottola Special Event Consulting, loves about Be Our Guest.  Mottola once ordered 18 custom, Italian tablecloths for a client’s wedding, but they didn’t arrive in a timely manner.  Instead of calling Mottola and asking her to pick another fabric, Be Our Guest’s Manager, Jim Carr, grabbed two empty suitcases and jumped on a plane to New York City.  There, he found the bolts of fabric, brought them home, and set seamstresses to work sewing the tablecloths.

“We do that because we’re a customer service company,” Carr said.

Mottola, who’s worked with Be Our Guest for over a decade, summed-up the company this way: “They rock!” she simply said.   

> Written by Marisa Carbone Finotti; Photography Brian Phillips