In the module, the players meet by being guards for a trader, who is then discovered smuggling as arrested. The PCs get free lodgings by a kindly owner of an inn, and that's when the PCs introduce themselves.
But it doesn't really make sense to me to introduce themselves here, as if they've already been travelling together you'd assume they'd have talked before. (Also they're all new players so I want to give them a simple first encounter with bandits.)
So how would you go about getting the smuggler to acquire their services in the first place, that's not meeting in a tavern?
Bump
Have them meet at the beginning of the caravan's journey. Hand wave the trip from their start to Belhaim. They talk at the Wise Piper re: what to do now that their employer is in custody.