** Small Business Fridays is a new blog series focusing on local small businesses. Each business involved receives a complimentary short business session. Please contact me for more information. I’d love to network with your small business! **

Meet Hannah! She is the owner of The Vintage Rental Company. We met up last week at her studio for a short business session and a quick interview.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your business. What do you do and what services do you offer?

A: We offer vintage and antique items for rent for weddings, events, and photo shoots. We have all sorts of vintage furniture pieces, china, photo props, and décor items to help give any event or photo shoot a fun and timeless flair. Our pieces can be rented individually (a la carte) or in multiple item packages to accommodate events of all sizes. Delivery, set up, and event styling services are also available. We are lovers of all things vintage but we also understand that quality vintage pieces can be pricey, so we started The Vintage Rental Company with a simple goal to help brides (or anyone for that matter) incorporate an antique feel into their events without having to pay an arm and a leg to buy it all themselves. To do so, we have opened up our collection to the public to make great vintage style more attainable in the West Georgia area.

Q: Where are you located? What’s your contact information?

A: We have just opened up a showroom at 520 Maple Street in Carrollton where clients can come browse many of our rental items, get inspiration, and chat with us. We are currently operating our showroom by appointment so it is best if clients call before they come just to be sure that there is someone there to meet with them. We can be reached by phone at 770-846-7837 or by email at thevintagerentalco@yahoo.com

Q: What is the greatest lesson in business you’ve learned?

A: I have a tendency to be a bit of a perfectionist, so the biggest thing that this business has taught me is to let go of the idea that things have to be just so in order to be any good. What I have learned instead is that a lot of the time, the best results happen when things are improvised or when things don’t go exactly according to plan. That is what is really cool about being in the antique business- most of our pieces are 50 or more years old and some of them have the dings, nicks, scuffs, or holes to prove it- but that is what makes them so unique and wonderful! The same goes for weddings and events- sometimes perfection is boring and the best events are the ones that are as unique and imperfect as the people they are honoring- and that is perfectly ok!

Q:  What are some words you live by?

A: Owning a business is wonderful but it can also be scary, stressful, and downright overwhelming at times. When I start to feel frazzled or overwhelmed I try to remember the phrase, “The universe unfolds as it should.” My aunt used to tell me that a lot when I was younger and it always seems to help me calm down and keep things in perspective. 

Q: Any tips for brides planning their wedding?

A: I would definitely urge brides to enlist help as much as possible in the wedding planning process as it can get extremely overwhelming if you try to be superwoman and do it all yourself. I have learned that when it comes to weddings, people really like to feel involved so if there are any aspects of the planning process that you can comfortably delegate to someone else (wedding professionals, friends, family members, etc.) I would highly recommend it. Enlisting help for your wedding will help you feel less stressed so that you can actually enjoy this wonderful and exciting time in your life and it will also help those around you feel like they contributed in a meaningful way.

Thanks, Hannah! I look forward to working together in the future!