We were lucky to catch up with Taryn & Anthony Vickman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Taryn & Anthony , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Business story
It all started with our own wedding. Flash back to the beginning of 2016, we were newly engaged and trying to plan the wedding we were both envisioning. We knew we wanted an outdoor wedding and we wanted vintage rustic vibes. We also were on a pretty tight budget. We just couldn’t find anything that felt like “us”. Anthony comes from a family full of handy men. His dad, uncles, and grandfathers combined can build/fix just about anything between them all. Anthony naturally has that in his blood, and I have always been a creative person as well. We ultimately decided we wanted a backyard wedding and would DIY everything. We found the perfect backyard wedding venue that was brand new to Gilbert at the time (they are no longer in business 😢). They provided the beautiful empty canvas, and we were left with the rest. We instantly started dreaming up all of the pieces we wanted to build/create from our backdrop down to the florals. We designed a beautiful rustic backdrop with a stage for us to stand on, a huge awesome rustic bar, tables out of French doors, giant yard games, and tons of little decor pieces like painted bottles and signs. Coincidentally my best friend at the time was also getting married only a month before us. They were also doing a diy wedding but up in northern Arizona in the woods! Another beautiful open canvas which also just needed the decor and large furniture items to complete a wedding. So we also offered to build them a wedding arch, and have them use the bar and wooden buffet tables we were using for ours. Fast forward to both weddings, and while totally different they were both absolutely gorgeous, and just so fun. Guests from both weddings loved all of the pieces we built and were so impressed that Anthony did everything himself. They were asking for custom items to be built for their homes, or saying they knew someone getting married and would love the arch or the bar etc. The venue where we were married loved all of the pieces we built and had talked with Anthony about maybe buying some or having him help make things for them to keep for future couples. The weddings were over and we now had all of this stuff with no where to put it. We thought about selling it but then we thought maybe we could rent them out to make a few extra bucks since we were going to be saving to buy a bigger home. When we got our wedding photos back and shared them over social media, we had so many people ask if they could rent our things. We said yes to a couple and then things just grew from there! Anthony thought up the name and started working on a website. The venue we were married at was hosting open houses and they had shared our wedding photos on their site, so couples were asking about our items there. We brought our things to some of their open houses and met some amazing vendors that we are still connected to today! We began joining styled shoots to get more professional photos of our items and to network with other vendors, and then we started designing new arches and other pieces based on what we thought couples would need. We offered Anthony’s 68 mustang as a getaway car service which was a pretty unique item not many have, and I also offered a floral service. We booked our first huge backyard wedding which wanted 10 farm tables that we didn’t even have built yet. We had shown them what we wanted them to look like and that we had plans to build them, and they simply trusted us and we did it! So we spent the next I think 7 months with Anthony working his other job full time, me working full time and being pregnant, living with Anthony’s parents while doing a total gut job kitchen and floor remodel to the new house we just bought, all while building the farm tables in the backyard. So much sanding and staining. I think Anthony lost 20 lbs in 4 months due to stress. We finished them just in time for the wedding and they were beautiful. A true labor of love. And we had so many compliments from the weddings guests. We now had photos of the tables to post on our website and the rest was history! We basically said yes to everything that came in and worked our butts off setting up multiple weddings each month, getting busier and busier as our social media following grew. Any of our friends that were getting married used us for an arch, or farm tables, or flowers. Today, Anthony still works full time at his other job with having weekends and one day off each week to focus on weddings. I have stayed home since having our son and solely focus on the wedding business, emails, scheduling, all of the behind the scenes stuff, all while being mommy to our 3 kids. I also gave up the floral side of the business as it was taking too much time away from our kids, and added a lot of unneeded stress to the business and our personal lives. Now we have full focus on rentals and it has been amazing. Anthony continues to build 80% of our inventory by hand, with only purchasing things like dance floors, chairs, and lighting. We have been able to basically be a debt free company and have grown as needed and when we are ready just little steps at a time. We currently average 15 events every weekend, and have a team of about 12 amazing guys working for us (most part time). We have 4 storage units bursting at the seams with all of the new inventory we continue to add, and hopefully a warehouse and showroom in our near future. We are soon to be adding multiple photo-booths, a larger range of getaway cars, a full bartending service, and will be stretching into the birthday party/festival scene by adding a full bounce house/water slides rental service to help supplement our slower summer seasons in AZ. We have also purchased a CNC machine and will be making custom neon signs and other decor items for people to purchase for their wedding/event or just their home! Our motto has always been “from the ground up” like our wedding song by “Dan & Shay”, and it truly is how we got started.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
A pivoting time for me was deciding to end the floral side of our business. From the very beginning I always loved the floral side of the wedding industry. I loved seeing the individual florals come together to create these beautiful statement pieces. I loved the color, and the smell, and the textures, and just the uniqueness it brought to each wedding. It truly is the finishing touch that creates the magical feeling of a wedding. This was also something I did as a creative outlet and the part of the business that I felt was mine. The joy that the florals brought to the brides when they would see them was just like nothing else. But the work. Oh my goodness the work. Florals are a perishable item, so you only have so long to create and deliver them before you have not so happy looking flowers which means a not so happy client. They are also messsssy. Holy dirt on the eucalyptus! By the time you’re done with one arrangement, your hands are covered in thick eucalyptus grime. The clippings from all of the flower stems, and trimmings off the greeneries. The thorns on the rose stems. I didn’t have a dedicated space to work. My kitchen and my dining area, and my living room were my work places. We had converted a shed in the backyard into a full blown insulated walk-in-cooler for the flowers, but there wasn’t space to work there. And because I don’t know how to say no, I would typically have multiple events each weekend and flowers would just throw up all over my house, invading our home life. And oh my pampas grass. If I never work with pampas grass again I will be the happiest person alive. That stuff sheds so badly, you’re space looks like you cut open a feather stuffed pillow and shook it all over. And it gets up your nose, and sticks to your clothes and your hair and in your ears. Oh my goodness it’s just ridiculous. But every single bride in AZ wants it. So back to the work. I was spending hours for each event between planing the flowers with the bride, ordering the flowers, picking up the flowers, prepping the flowers, assembling the flowers, then finally delivering the flowers. I would spend many nights with zero sleep because I had so many arrangements to make and deliver the next day. I was hiring a couple girls to help me on the bigger ones, but I was doing most of the work alone. So many times the flowers came in and they were the wrong color, some would be dead, some were broken, others were missing. This happened all the time and there was nothing I could do about it. So I would have to frantically go make substitutions based on what was available to purchase on hand at the wholesale shop. It was just such a high stress job. Flowers were taking over our lives. The stress was always on making sure they were perfect and not dying, meanwhile Anthony is working his butt of building rental items and getting things ready for weddings that way. Our entire weekends were devoted to weddings and flowers. I had been pregnant with and given birth to our two sons during this time also having our older daughter. Our first was born September 2017 and our second August 2019. I was doing these weddings pregnant, or with a newborn and/or toddler and older daughter at home needing me. I wasn’t able to go to my older sons very first round of t-ball practices. I couldn’t give our daughter the time she needed with homework. I tried to include them and have them “help mommy prep the flowers” but I knew they wanted me more present. I saw our future and knew it was only going to get busier. I could hire someone but the brides hire ME to do the flowers not my employee. They want MY skill and MY artistic design. I loved the end process and it still brought me so much joy and gave me such a creative outlet, but was it worth all of the stress and time away from the kids? It is also very expensive. Brides were always wanting cheaper while showing me elaborate Pinterest designs that are anything but cheap. Flowers are SO expensive, and it was so hard to make money and make a beautiful product that I was proud of and wanted to give to my clients. It has such a high overhead and such a heavy workload it seemed like we would have to get even busier and spend even less time with our kids in order to really make this lucrative. We were so stressed I can’t even remember how many times we had blow out fights wanting to sell the business. My mental state was getting worse by the day. I had major anxiety attacks and just couldn’t be the mom or wife I wanted to be. We knew something had to give. We really wanted to keep offering flowers because our couples loved that we had both rentals and florals. They wanted a one stop shop. So we tried to find a florist that could be “our florist”, and still market on our website. This proved to be impossible and we got burned more times than we should have. Then Covid showed up and the world shut down and the floral world went into a really sad place. Floral farms shut down, flowers couldn’t ship to the US due to travel bans, events were canceled for all of spring. I only had like 5 weddings booked with florals for the upcoming fall, and we knew this was our chance. This was going to be our way out. It was now or never. So we decided it was time to make a change. We took florals off our website and finished out those few events. I think all but one ended up canceling due to Covid anyways. I was able to start focusing on my mental health, getting my postpartum depression under control. We turned the flower shop into an awesome home gym (bye bye gym membership), our work stress load was immediately cut in half, and our business now had more of our attention on the rental side which has allowed it to grow almost double than the year before. And most importantly I am a way better mom and wife today because of this choice. Sometimes I miss the flowers when we see how beautiful they look at the events, but I don’t miss the work, the stress, and the person it made me.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Building our reputation into the wedding scene really just came with time. We initially met other vendors during open houses and styled shoots that we were apart of. We went to so many of those events the first two years, and just networked our faces off. We met so many amazing people and just shared our story and our kindness. We offered discounts to planners and photographers, and if they asked for us to be apart of something, we said yes! We always showed up on time, we were professional but also honest and real. We showed our true selves and I think people appreciated that. We referred couples to other vendors we loved, and we were inclusive on our social media always giving credit to other vendors involved in things we did. When it came to venues we were always respectful of their space. Our team is always professional and on time to events, and they are kind and helpful to the planners on site. My guys have many times done things outside of our scope of business to help a planner out day of and it definitely doesn’t go unnoticed. We make sure our items are always in top shape and on trend. We also offer vender discounts whenever a vendor books us directly for their clients. For that reason we even have florists book our arches that they include in their packaging for their couples. This was even when I myself was doing florals. We have always had a community over competition mentality, and have lifted our fellow vendors up. Arizona has a huge client base for wedding business, and there is plenty of business to go around. We list our favorite vendors on our website as well and don’t charge them for it. We want our couples having amazing weddings, and we know that it takes a full team of amazing vendors. Over time we have become a preferred vendor for many planners, venues, florists and photographers!
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.IDorentalsaz.com
- Instagram: @idorentalsaz
- Facebook: @idorentalsaz
Image Credits
@CharlotteFrancisphoto @megancaryphotography @amethystimage @emilyvandeheyphotography @maryclaire_photography