Welcome to another Ask Me Anything (Ask Us Anything?) episode! Each week we’ll answer your questions on STR, real estate, OTAs, and everything in between.

Amelia (@EmersonFieldsVenue) asks:

Our wedding venue is preparing to host overnight stays. What is your advice on bedding and linens: do we buy multiples of something cheap & disposable to replace over time, or something durable that can be used repeatedly?

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Hello.

Welcome back from the great episode.

My name is Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant.

And together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.

And this is the--

Hosting Hotline.

Get excited.

Today we have a question about a wedding venue that's going

to be having overnight stays.

My name is Amelia Holder.

I'm the owner of Emerson Fields wedding venue in Central Missouri, and we are

a destination type of wedding venue.

We will be adding lodging later this year, and I am just now

starting to source linens, bedding, towels, those types of things.

And I was just curious if you have a recommendation on the best

place to source those linens from.

Also just kind of weighing options.

Do you go with something less expensive think if it gets stained, no big

deal, it's going to be disposed of.

Or do you go with something more high end, thinking that it needs

to endure lots of visitors and, um, it will hold up over time.

So just curious about your thoughts on that.

I enjoy listening.

Thanks so much.

My wedding venue is Emerson Fields Venue on Instagram.

She gives her email and we don't want to put her on blast.

But check out Emerson Fields because it's lovely.

Amelia, I have a question for you.

I'm looking to source a husband.

Um, since you have a great wedding venue, could you let me know?

I don't want a low quality disposable.

I want on the higher end, so, uh, if you have any suitors I'm

looking for sourcing a husband.

I got to put it out there.

I mean, I got the air waves, Sarah.

No, I cannot wait--

Sarah is stunned right now.

She is

I cannot wait see this customer service emails that

are come in after Oh that.

PSA.

Hey, Amelia, if you find my suitor, I will get

married at Emerson Fields.

All right.

It's a win-win.

All right, let's help her up.

Okay.

You scratch my back.

I scratch yours.

Back to bedding.

Ooh, we're taking it there now.

Ooh, we're going straight to the honeymoon.

We're going straight to the honeymoon because, that's

the business that Amelia is in.

Yeah, she's in the bedding business.

She really is.

Now she is.

First of all, we love that you're even thinking ahead of time on this.

And I do want to say our team is here and they're actually--

there's a live recording from our team, Chloe and Colleen.

So they're actually giving us some good tips.

Chloe has some experience in wedding photography and videography, and then

Colleen said something really great.

We just want to put this out there.

Weddings are a different breed when it comes to bedding because there's

going to be a lot of spray tan.

There's going to be a lot of makeup and a lot of people that are too tired

or maybe had partied too hard and don't want to remove their makeup.

So you do have maybe a little bit more potential staining that's

going to happen on the bedding.

But Sarah, take it away on, on your thoughts.

Well, she asked for a recommendation.

So there obviously, Amelia, are a myriad of options for you.

But I will say until recently, until some brands have come out with great

solutions for short-term rental hosts to tap us into the world of essentially

wholesale and group purchasing, I will be honest, I went to Amazon to

find really inexpensive bedding that I could toss and it was microfiber.

It didn't wrinkle easily.

Quick to dry.

Well, it's not that quick to dry.

And then, so when--

Your equipment matters too.

It does.

And also it's hard to tell, even if you try to be as organized as possible,

it's really hard to tell what's a twin, what's a fool, what's a queen?

What's a king?

So I was desperate for something that had some sort of identifier

other than my fabric marker--

Which also washes off.

Which sometimes washes off or like, or the team would forget to bring their--

anyway, so it wasn't ideal situation.

What we use is we are members of Host GPO, which is a group purchasing

organization, and they have a great partnership with Standard Textile,

which is a hospitality wholesale brand.

If you stay at the Hilton, you're going to see Standard Textile

or Hilton by Standard Textile.

If you start to look at the actual tags, if you're going to a true

hotel, you'll see that most of the linens are by Standard Textile.

Yeah.

There's other hospitality brands out there, but Host

GPO and other brands like it.

Manoan has other partnerships with bedding, but what we've been

using, and Amelia asked us for our recommendation is Standard Textile.

And I like it because the thread is color coded.

It is a blend, so it is equal parts, easy to remove stains, doesn't wrinkle

easily, but stands up to time and doesn't-- you know, sometimes when

your fitted sheets ends up getting tight on the ends and it's really

hard to stretch it over the mattress after so much like that won't happen.

My pants after I eat.

Oh, sorry.

I'm with the jokes today.

We have an audience, live

Oh my gosh.

I lost my train of thought, Annette.

Oh, and I only give you the-- I think the biggest, well, not

the biggest, but something amazing about the standard textile sheets.

They come laundered.

If you have been through the lovely adventure of setting up a short-term

rental and not having the towels and the sheets pre laundered, it adds days.

So the fact that these all come pre laundered is a huge time saver.

And Standard Textile does have different lines, so you could go for

their basic line if you wanted to, amelia.

They have a middle of the line, they have a top of the line.

And the way Host GPO packages it is when you join Host GPO, you can say I have

three kings, four queens, and two twins.

And they magically do the math in the back of how many pillows you'll probably need.

And then once you get to the checkout, you'll be able to edit

it, but it's pretty brilliant.

They're not as cheap as what you can find Amazon, Amelia,

but I've found they last longer.

Our guests love them and they're quick to dry, which if your laundry situation

is not perfect, then this might be a great way to stay on top of it.

AD MARKER

Amelia, you did not ask this, but I want to parlay into this, a great

point actually, Colleen brought up too.

Where and how are you doing this laundry?

Okay.

That is actually probably one of the biggest questions you should

be asking yourself now is how many beds are there are going to be?

How much laundry are you going to be responsible for in between those turns

and where are you going to be doing that?

That's something-- please think ahead of time.

It's going to save you lots of time in the long run.

And you also mentioned, Amelia, I think you said something like-- obviously

you focused on the sheets and towels, but I think you did bring up beds too.

Again, like Sarah said, Host GPO and also Minoan, we're going to

tag both of them in the show notes.

If you are a host and you're looking to purchase any of these

things, please look at both of them.

Um, they both have different options.

Standard textile specifically on Host GPO, but if you're looking for mattresses, any

other furnishings, Minoan's on there too.

So we just have to bring both of those to you.

They'll be in the show notes, but Amelia, good luck.

Wait.

One more quick.

Amelia, also, they also have mattress protectors and pillow protectors.

They have blankets.

They have all your towels that you might need, again, different levels.

Standard Textile has all the things.

The pillow protectors, Sarah and I had a call with someone, not so

recently, but they were blown away.

They didn't even know what a pillow protector was.

What!

Who was that?

Well, maybe you weren't on that call.

I was on that independently.

And I don't know about you, but there's drill.

Drill happens, people.

Okay?

If you're like Annette eating pizza in bed--

You really need pillow.

Don't stop at the mattress protector.

You need the pillow protector.

Amelia, when you're shopping for Annette's future suitor,

can you please let that person know that she does pizza in bed.

You need to double up on the pillow protectors.

I'm just joking.

With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

I am Annette Grant, and together we are--

Both Sarah and Annette:

Thanks for Visiting.