We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Thomann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Dearly Beeloved (DB) was founded in 2018 by sisters, Amanda & Michelle, as they saw an opportunity to better service the event market with curated favors & decor employing a multifaceted approach. The objective was to provide customers with a white glove design service for a branded gift shipment and/or event.

WIth so many gifts tied to weddings being cheap in quality and highly generic, they set out to source and design items that resonated with an individual’s event. The creation of gifts & decor that are are of the highest quality is a driving force for their mission.

DB has over 100 small business connections to provide clients with items ready to receive in-house personalization. Customizing items to fit an event or brand narrative is at the heart of DB. Lead times are kept short by in-house personalization rather than farming out such tasks. The company continues to invest in new technology that allows for personalization across a wide span of materials.

When working with corporate client to fulfill their gifting needs, DB takes a particularly white glove approach. After an initial consultation, the team leads the client from start to finish from design to execution. Branded gifts can come in the form of a larger gift set or as small as an individual favor.

DB has most recently been investing in a number of custom rentals, including mobile bars & favor shelving, to widen its event fabrication arm. Rentals are the next step in providing customers with a central location to curate their event.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Amanda Thomann, a co-founder of Dearly Beeloved; a women run event decor & gift business based on Long Island New York. I graduated from Boston University Questrom School of Business in 2013 with a degree in finance. After graduation I began working at a capital markets consulting firm, AST Financial on Wall Street, and managed a book of high profile publicly traded clients. I worked to provide investor relations teams & c-suites with investor and market intelligence. While I enjoyed the work I’ve always been driven to more creative outlets and an affinity for sales. Dearly Beeloved proved to be the nexus of both passions. While planning for my wedding back in 2018, by sister & MOH realized there was opportunity in the event space for quality, personalized items. When I was a MOH in by best friend’s wedding the year prior I realized I was buying decor and favors from 10+ sellers on Etsy, which meant managing several lead times and following up with multiple shops to try and carve out a cohesive event design. Every seller felt like they played in such a niche space there had to be room to bring more items under a single umbrella to make communication more centralized and avoid delays.

DB stated out as a part time job, something I did in extra time and started to grow slowly with my sister, while making items for friends and family events. When covid hit and all events hit a stand still we had to quickly pivot to gifts that facilitated virtual events. To date, the quick pivot from in person events to sending heart felt gifts when people were stuck at home was one of the best business decisions and successes we’ve seen at DB.

In 2021, I made the jump to DB full time to focus on the business and ensure it was given the proper attention to grow with all it’s potential. As we continue to grow, I manage business development and work with our corporate gifts arm; our fastest growing division. However, as with any small business, no task is too big or too small when a job needs to be completed. I can be found managing corporate proposals, sourcing new vendors and calibrating machinery in a single day. We’re excited about 2023 and looking to expand our staff outside of seasonal help!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2021, I made the jump to DB full time to focus on the business and ensure it was given the proper attention to grow with all its potential. This was a huge step for me to take, letting go of a steady pay check from Wall Street to follow my passion alongside my mother & sister who were already working full-time at our warehouse in Holbrook.

As mentioned earlier, when covid hit and all events hit a stand still we had to quickly pivot to gifts that facilitated virtual events. To date, the quick pivot from in person events to sending heart felt gifts when people were stuck at home was one of the best business decisions and successes we’ve seen at DB.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

After deciding to go all in on the business at the start of 2021, I shifted my full time focus to marketing and business development. That meant looking for ways to get us in front of corporate decision makers in the industry, which for us meant event planners at first look. We put a large amount of capital on the line and secured one of the best booths at the Wedding MBA conference in Las Vegas at the convention center. It was our first corporate event as a team and we worked hard to research the best tactics for attending a conference of this scale as a vendor. We misjudged time needed to prepare, over estimated the number of attendees (although there was thousands!) and didn’t take advantage of shipping crate(s) directly to the expo center. This meant mailing dozens of boxes to the hotel and having to carry them up escalators and to the furthest corner of the convention center to rush to set up. We didn’t pre assemble gift bags as giveaways and were scrambling to assemble as hundreds of business individuals rushed to our booth as they exited speaker series. We also realized our target demographic extended beyond wedding planners as many other guests in the industry were looking for branded gifts to send their clients; apparently a task many tried to do themselves and found it expensive and cumbersome. The event was a complete success despite the hurdles and showed us we needed to reflect on the business and where to place our focus for branded gifts. The event was such an incredible learning experience and we are looking forward to attending next month with a number of lessons in our back pocket!

Contact Info:

• Website: dearlybeelovedllc.etsy.com & www.dearlybeeloved.com
• Instagram: @dearly.beeloved
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/dearlybeeloved
• Other: Tiktok (NEW!) @dearlybeeloved

Image Credits
@a5studiosny – short from the conference with flower wall & terracotta favor shelving