The Vendor Partnership That You Didn't Know You Needed

Weddings have gotten prohibitively expensive, thus more newly engaged couples are finding themselves in situations wherein they actively have to seek out deals to afford the wedding they want. Luckily, wedding rentals have made this particular situation miles easier to manage. In this episode, Jamie Wolfer and Heather Loree Fier chat with Marie Kubin from Rent My Wedding about how wedding industry pros and engaged couples can benefit from the unique offerings they provide. Marie demonstrates how wedding rentals are perfect for those who are willing to go the DIY route—and save a lot of money in the process.

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About Marie Kubin

Marie Kubin is Founder & CEO of RENT MY WEDDING, a nationwide rental company. She started the company in 2011 while planning her own wedding. It started out as a side hustle while attending law school. After completing her law degree and passing the bar, Marie decided to take the plunge and pursue business full-time. Since then, the company has grown to become the largest online event rental company in the U.S. In addition to rentals, the company also publishes a magazine, as well as a vendor directory and marketplace. To learn more, visit www.rentmywedding.com. RENT MY WEDDING is a nationwide rental company. They are passionate about helping couples save money, and providing an unbelievably awesome rental experience. RENT MY WEDDING prides itself on having earned the most 5-star reviews in the wedding industry. Rental items include wedding lighting, photo booths, chair covers, backdrops, canopies, and more. RENT MY WEDDING ships items directly to your door, and afterwards you send them back in the same box. All products are designed for easy DIY setup, no experience required. Shipping is FREE both ways nationwide. To learn more, call 1-800-465-8020 or visit www.RentMyWedding.com.

The Vendor Partnership That You Didn’t Know You Needed With Marie Kubin

Jamie: In this episode, we are chatting with Marie from RentMyWedding.com. You are not even ready. This is a vendor partnership that you didn’t know that you needed, but you need it. You need to get on board with RentMyWedding.com. It’s such an amazing resource. I know this part sounds like an ad but I’m pumped for what you’re about to read. It’s going to be good. Grab yourself a snack, sit on down and get ready to start up the partnership that you never knew you needed.

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Heather: Marie, thank you for being here with us. We are excited to talk with you. We love what Rent My Wedding does. We think it’s such a great resource and more wedding vendors should know about it, so welcome.

Marie: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here and I love your show. I’m excited to chat with you guys.

Jamie: She’s buttering us up already.

Heather: We do like that. Given the craziness in the world, the wedding industry, we’re all struggling through this but working through it and aiming to make some magic happen later this year. We figured having you on would be a great idea because we want to provide some resources and ideas to other wedding professionals, so that they can pass on this helpful knowledge to their couples who maybe have a slimmer budget than they initially thought they would for their wedding. It’s a challenge that’s popped up for folks who are dealing with the financial situation that’s unfolded. We hope that you’re open to sharing some of your wisdom and ideas with us.

Marie: You’re right on that. Now is the time more than ever to find ways to save on your weddings. I would definitely love to explore that idea.

Heather: One of the things that get couples the biggest bang for their buck, in my opinion, is lighting. You do a ton with lighting and it is incredibly affordable. Can you start there and talk about lighting? How can that be a great way to address the space of all that goodness?

Marie: I’ve been doing wedding rentals for several years now. Hands down the most bang for your buck is definitely uplighting. That’s the colorful lights that illuminate the walls of any venue. When it comes to uplighting, the thing is that it transforms any venue. Clients are always raving about it. They’re always telling us it was the best money they spent on their wedding because everyone had this wow factor when they walked into the venue and saw the lighting.

Heather: It adds so much drama, depth and maybe even some texture, which I know Jamie’s all about over there.

Jamie: I love texture. I do have a question. Could you perhaps expound a little bit upon what you do for our readers?

Marie: We are a nationwide event rental company. The way it works is that you order everything online, we ship it to your door. Then afterward, you put it right back in the same box and send it back to us. We do all different kinds of rentals from all different kinds of wedding lighting to photo booths, backdrops, linens, canopies, anything wedding décor.

Jamie: I feel like with a company like that you bridge the gap between the rental company down the street and buying it yourself.

Marie: We do focus a lot on the big-ticket items. The great thing is that a lot of couples assume lighting might be out of their budget, because it’s expensive to hire a full-service lighting vendor. Where we come in is we take these things that are either technical or they’re expensive, and we give you an easy and affordable way to do it.

Jamie: Coming from someone who DIY-ed a bunch of stuff for her wedding, we’re not going to talk about how much stuff I did, but it was too much. Being left with the stuff afterwards, goodness gracious. I still have 800 feet of cafe bulbs in my garage. It sounded great and I’m sure one day we’ll use them. I’ve got maybe 200 feet in the backyard but what a great opportunity to serve that area those couples where they’re like, “I don’t want to pay the full cost but I do you want to get a lot of bang for my buck, but I also don’t want to be like Jamie and have 600 feet of lights that are literally never going to be used.” Let’s be honest.

Heather: I love Marie’s company because of this. This is a resource I recommend up and down to my clients. I think it’s one of those hidden gems that maybe a professional in some city somewhere, let’s say Tulsa, does not realize that they can have all this shipped out to them. They’re only looking at those pros locally who have a lot more cost because they’re delivering and they have their whole team coming in and installing and certain aspects. These are great if you have the budget but if you don’t, this resource is a perfect fit for that. I love it. Marie, what other lighting options do you guys have? Give us a little overview of those because I know you do some surprising things. I didn’t know couples could DIY or tap into a resource like yours for DIY.

Marie: As far as lighting, we do the uplighting and the texture lights. If you want to put some really nice patterns or textures on the walls or maybe the ceiling, we do those. We also have gobos or what we call custom monogram lights if you want to put your names and your wedding date on the dance floor or the wall. We do kick spotlights, centerpiece spotlights, string lights and some specialty things like starry night lighting, which allows you to create a realistic night sky on the ceiling. It’s as if you have your first dance under the stars. Lots of different effects, whether you’re trying to do something traditional or you want to do something unique and different. We have all kinds of lighting.

Jamie: I’m sure that for a lot of vendors we see behind the scenes and we know what DIY looks like. For any couples that might be reading, what hurdles might a couple run into when using a DIY solution like this?

Marie: That’s definitely a good thing to think about. Like any other aspect of your wedding, you want to make sure you plan it out and plan ahead of time. When you go the DIY route, you’re choosing to spend a little bit of your time instead of spending money. For things like the decor or the lighting, you want to make sure you’ve planned when you’re going to set it up, who’s going to do it and how much time you need. The thing that we always recommend is ask your venue if you can get in early, because a lot of venues they might let you in the day before. That makes life easier if you can go there, set up your lighting or set up your other items a day ahead. It’s one less thing you have to worry about the day of your wedding.

If it’s not available, don’t worry because most of our clients do find a way to set it up on the morning of their wedding. The great part is that you can set up everything within an hour if you’re doing lighting and maybe the photobooth. You could ask your friends or family to set it up. Give them the instructions, it’s easy. Get some help taking care of that the morning of the wedding. Delegating and making sure you have it in the plan is the best way to set yourself up for going the DIY route.

Heather: One thing that I recommended to couples I work with to fill that gap if maybe they don’t have relatives who can help or friends or their venue doesn’t allow a lot of extra time for setup, is looking into services like TaskRabbit or finding a freelancer of some sort who can come in and help with that. Have you had couples do that? How did that work out if you heard about someone using those resources?

Marie: That’s a great idea. We hear a lot more about that. There are all kinds of websites like HireAHelper and that’s great. You can have the rentals delivered to the venue, and then have your helper meet at the venue, pick up the items there and it feels flawless. That’s a great way as well. Even asking some of your other vendors like a DJ or the venue coordinator and ask if they might have someone or themselves who can help you out with that little bit of setup on the day.

Jamie: As these shows go on and people come in and share these amazing resources, I’m like, “I am the world’s worst wedding planner because I have no idea what you’re talking about.” What is HireAHelper?

Marie: I’m not an expert. I’ve heard of it, but that’s as far as I could go with HireAHelper. I’ve got nothing to do with them.

Heather: I do know that with TaskRabbit, you can basically get people to help with any task. You can often even get them to include their truck if you have a bunch of stuff you need them to help move. You can have people who have certain skillsets. Let’s say you were going to do some more elaborate lighting and needed things hung up. You have relatives who could help but they’re not maybe physically capable of doing some of that stuff. You can find people specifically on there with that physical capability. HireAHelper looks similar and it may be available in different locations. That’s the thing, city by city, you’ll find different folks. HireAHelper does seem to be talking a lot about moving. It seems like you can get some strong people there, probably also pretty crafty and capable with a hammer. That might be helpful too. That’s my overview from a quick look at their website.

Jamie: That’s your five-second review.

Heather: I have no idea if they’re any good. I have no experience with that. I’ve recommended couples to check out Thumbtack. It’s an amazing resource that you can find folks to help with specific aspects of the day, fill-in staff so to speak, and you can actually even find other vendors on Thumbtack. That’s an awesome resource for couples who are working on a slim budget. Also if you’re a pro and your couple comes to you and says, “I have this slim budget now. I’m thinking of using this amazing company, Rent My Wedding, for all these cool lighting features but I don’t know if you, the wedding planner, that I’ve hired, can do this for me.” If the wedding planner’s like, “No, I cannot.” These are great resources to send them to help fill in that gap and bring in the staff to connect the dots between a resource and actually having the labor to get it done. Probably a big part of the hesitation for many pros to not recommend these sites is that they get worried that the workload is going to land on them and they’re going to end up volunteering their time.

Jamie: We have a specific list of like, “Here’s the type of items we’ll set up. Anything that’s outside that list, you need to run by us beforehand because we are expensive busboys. We are a very expensive setup crew. We would love to help manage your team to do that, but you don’t want to be spending money on us cleaning off your tables when there are other things that we’re supposed to be doing.” I have a guttural reaction like, “Yes, absolutely.”

Heather: For those of you out there who are having that same gut reaction as Jamie, being like, “My couples can use this resource, but please don’t bring this to me and add it to my plate,” or it wouldn’t financially be a good decision for them to do it that way. There are places you can refer them to. You’re going to have limitations on some of the venues. You need to have certain insurance or whatever. Some of these options may not work, but there are a lot of ways to make magic happen for couples on all sorts of budgets. This resource as a base is such a great way to start. Marie, have you seen folks have success with the monogram lighting? You must because you’re selling it but that seems complicated to set up. I don’t know if I could manage that myself. I feel intimidated. Can you tell me how easy it is? You’re saying it’s easy, so it must be.

Marie: That is probably the easiest thing that you can rent from our website. Literally, all you need to do is plug it in. That’s all you’ll have to worry about.

Heather: I could probably do that then.

Now, more than ever, is the time to find ways to save on your wedding. Click To Tweet

Marie: We preload everything. Before your order ships out, we work with you. Our design team gets in touch. We create a design and get everything set how you want it. What you receive is this fun little briefcase. You open it up, the projector is inside. Set it on a table, plug it in and then aim it wherever you want to see it.

Heather: It’s ridiculously easy. Why are we not doing this with every event?

Marie: Think of what a hero you’re going to be as a pro who suggests this to your couple who’s like, “We wanted all this cool lighting but our budget’s tighter so we’re dropping that even though we wanted it.” You can be like, “Here’s this amazing resource and it’s totally easy.”

Jamie: Marie, you are making me a hero.

Heather: It’s totally within reach. What is the price point on this stuff? Are we talking thousands of dollars? I know easily with a local lighting company, you could be spending that.

Marie: With ours, the basic monogram light is $99, including the design, free shipping, everything.

Heather: That’s going to class up a lot of weddings right there.

Jamie: Marie, you made me a champion for many people. Thank you so much.

Marie: The biggest thing is education, getting it out there. You can do all these things yourself and you can do it in a really affordable way. You can still have this amazing dream wedding without the high price tag.

Heather: I’m going to say one thing on your site that did make me also feel intimidated was draping. There was draping on there, right?

When you go the DIY route, you’re choosing to spend a little bit more of your time instead of spending the money. Click To Tweet

Marie: We have a whole catalog, yes.

Heather: How does that work? Because that again makes me intimidated.

Marie: That is also super easy. All of our items are designed that as long as you can read a paper and follow the instructions, you can do it. We’ve had everything from kids to grandparents who have set this up and they’ve all done it. I promise you, anyone can do it. When it comes to the draping, we have a portable kit. The way it works is it’s essentially two tripods that you pop open, a crossbar that you lay across the top of them and then you slide the drapes on. You’ll use some nubs on the tripods to raise them up to the full height. You can lift them up so that they’re doing 8 or 10 feet up high to cover your walls. It’s super easy and it probably takes about 10 to 15 minutes to set up each 12-foot section of a backdrop.

Jamie: I’m impressed.

Heather: Looking at your website at that, I’m like, “I’m going to catch Marie on this one because that looks hard.” I feel like that would be way too complicated and you’d be having to stay up all night the night before your wedding, hanging up draping pipes and stuff, and that makes me have a shiver. This seems simple. As a pro guiding couples towards this, what would the benefit be in your mind for a pro recommending this, other than looking like a hero and allowing them to have more wiggle room in their budget for other things that they do want to source locally?

Marie: Another great reason for professionals to work with us is that they can use this as another income stream. What we have a lot of our clients doing is, their wedding planners offer lighting, linens or photobooth and they mark up the price. For that, they might do the setup, receive the packages or do some part of that rental process for them, and then mark up the price. That’s the profit that the wedding planner can get, in addition to the regular planning fees. That’s how we see a lot of professionals doing it. They come up with their own price list. We even help professionals by giving them a catalog or materials they can use to help market those packages to clients.

Heather: That is clever. I know on the side of things since I do more virtual wedding planning stuff that you also do have affiliate options too, which is very interesting. It’s another way pros could approach it. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Marie: If you’re looking to refer clients so you want to go hands-off, the affiliate program is a great way to go. All you have to do is sign up with our program. It’s on ShareASale.com. Once you sign up, you’ll get your own custom links for different products or for our general website. Share those with your customers in an email, or you could embed them on your website. Anytime someone clicks that link, you’ll get a commission for that sale.

Jamie: Marie, I feel bad because you don’t know me. I always get excited when vendors find a way to fill in a gap or a need that no one else is paying attention to. That’s a reason that Heather and I are passionate about doing online wedding courses. There are some out there, but we want to drive this home for vendors, that if you take a look and there’s a pain point, traditionally speaking there’s either you buy it and you set it up yourself and then you’re stuck with it afterward. I literally am a case study for that. Or you spend a lot more money to get it from a rental company. They’re worth every penny but you’re also paying for labor. You’re paying for office overhead. You’re paying for meetings and time. You have found a way to nuzzle yourself into that little niche. I’m impressed. This is cool.

Heather: I am also amazed because I did do a little homework and you have a million reviews. Thousands and thousands of reviews on Yelp or one of the review websites. You’re doing a great job over there. To be able to handle the scale you guys are doing is impressive.

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Marie: Thank you. That’s something we pride ourselves on., making every single rental flawless. These are weddings, you can’t have a do-over. We make sure that we’ve safeguarded every single step of the process so that nothing can go wrong, we’ve got you covered. That’s why we are fortunate enough for these reviews. It’s having that relationship with our clients, them knowing that they’re in good hands and having a great experience.

Jamie: Selfishly, how are you getting all these reviews? Are you sending a follow-up email afterward or people just love you so much that they’re flocking to Yelp in droves? Help a girl out. How are you doing that?

Marie: It’s simple. We send them an email once we confirm that we’ve gotten their rentals checked back in after their wedding. We shoot them an email and ask, “How did everything go? Would you also mind leaving us a review?” Simple as that.

Heather: She makes it sound simple. All of these things are simple. Marie nails it. Across the board, everything’s easy. She’s got the easy button. No problem.

Jamie: I’m like, “That’s all you do? You send them an email and then it happens?”

Heather: That’s it. No problem for Marie. She’s this magic.

Jamie: I’m probably terrible about the follow-up. I get nervous but you have it as an integral part of what you do.

Marie: You have to work it into what you do and your communications with your clients. Hopefully since we’re offering them the low price and the great experience, they’re pleasantly surprised. A lot of people are nervous when they rent with us because sometimes they think it’s too good to be true. It’s probably a little easier for us to get reviews because we’re surprising people. That probably works to it as well.

Heather: I would definitely say this is a surprising resource because as The Wedding Hacker, I was looking at this initially a few years ago being like, “No way. This is too cool. At this price, you’re getting these aspects of your wedding handled.” You mentioned photobooths too. You guys do the draping and lighting. Any other things? Are we missing anything that these wedding pros can somehow find some cool way to integrate it into their business even as you’ve recommended?

Marie: I think you’ve covered it. We also do canopies, which are also nice. You can do it as either a four-sided canopy or you can turn it into an arch altar and do one side of the canopy. That’s another great rental option as well for ceremonies.

Heather: You guys had one where, is it lights mixed in with draping or was that two separate things?

Marie: You can integrate all of our lights with the draping, whether you want washes of color with the uplights, or you can use string lights to give it a different effect. You can mix and match some of those products together.

Heather: Basically, all the vendors reading, you now have this opportunity to go and also set these things up for your clients and tap into their resource. You’re welcome.

Jamie: This is a game-changer for a DJ who’s starting out that can’t afford his own uplights. This is a game-changer for a wedding planner who’s like, “Sure, I can do that,” and then realizes that they don’t want to buy all this product. This is amazing.

Heather: I’ve been fangirling for your company for a while. I’m like, “I want to hear a little bit about how you do it.” That’s a good question. How do you do this? How are you managing this volume, while delivering and impressing people the way you are? What’s the secret sauce factor?

Marie: The secret sauce is planning and thinking through every single step of the process. It’s taken some time to get there, but we’ve kept tweaking everything as we go with custom rental software, inventory management, integrating with FedEx, so that we are seeing every single package while it’s in transit. Having a lot of safeguards in place as far as quality control. We have a double check system so that when we ship out an order, two people inspect every single order. That way we know it’s absolutely perfect. Thinking through a lot of what goes into the rental, where it could slip up along the way and having a protocol in place to make sure that nothing can go wrong.

Heather: I’m going to throw you a question here that was not mentioned that we were going to ask you. I’m going off the grid. What about resources for online rentals for linens or napkins, for those sorts of things? I’ve researched these platforms and I’ve seen some that look pretty good, but I’m wondering if you, having what you’ve built, have any recommendations? I think that for many couples who are on that slim budget, tapping into that local rental company is difficult because of the rental fee, because of the steep extra delivery charge for Saturday night, which is like, “A lot of weddings are on Saturdays.” All those things make linen, which isn’t too expensive to rent, super expensive to rent, when you have them all on. You guys have navigated around that. Do you have any recommendations on resources for other aspects of rentals that folks might be able to find online?

Marie: As far as linens, that’s one where it’s surprising to me that there’s not a great option. We do the chair covers, but we don’t do table linens, runners or anything like that. Unfortunately, the other online resources I’ve seen are pricey. It’s one of those things where it takes a lot of labor to do because every time someone uses the linen, it’s going to be stained. It takes a lot to keep it looking good enough for someone else to use. Honestly, we don’t do linens because I’m a perfectionist and I could not deal with sending out a linen that wasn’t perfect. It would be hard to recycle a linen and keep it that perfect. I don’t have a great solution as far as linens. That’s definitely something where maybe looking at wholesalers like eFavormart could be a way to go. You’re buying instead of renting, so you still have it when you’re done, which isn’t great but that’s what I tend to do. I tell our clients to look for eFavormart, go on eBay or find someone who’s selling their linens, which is sometimes the better way to go than renting when it comes to those.

Heather: That’s the place I ended with the clients when I’ve recommended options for linens. Buying somehow is more affordable with the linens and then you have to put in the labor of prepping them. Steaming and ironing them, whatever you’ve got to do to get them looking pristine on the tables. One company I have found, and this might be someone you guys want to connect with on the opportunities here, BBJ Linen. I do like them and they do a similar setup where they mail things to you and they’re in great condition. You use them, throw them back in a bag and send it right back after the event. It’s simple if you have the manpower to handle that and you’re not having to pay for a ton for delivery and all that. It’s just one flat fee. I will mention that, but it does seem to be one specific area of the rentals that’s hard to get away from the local company with all the additional fees and charges.

Marie: If anything, we always tell our clients go with the basic linens that your venue offers and then use your budget to dress up the rest of the venues. People are going to see the uplighting in the entire room more than they’re going to focus on the linens. Sometimes you can go with the standard linens and look for other ways to get creative with your decor.

Heather: That is a smart recommendation. Also, I’d say certain little features on the table and I know, Jamie, you did this a lot with your wedding. Thrifting beautiful votives or maybe even unique glasses for each person at the table or a set of vintage tableware. All different things you can mix in there that you would source and actually buy, but then that you could either resell, gift or use in your home. Add those pieces as little pops and then use this option for backdrops, lighting and those big items that wouldn’t necessarily make sense and be used in your life long-term.

Jamie: I wish I’d known about you when I had my wedding because there were some places that I would have rented some pipe and drape. I purchased my linens. I personally hated it. It took 45 minutes to iron per tablecloth to get those wrinkles out. After that, we had to transport them carefully so they wouldn’t wrinkle, then there were all the fold marks in it, which now as a planner I see those in linens all the time. They were not as nice. They were cheap. They’re less expensive but we had 140 guests, so we spent forever ironing the table clothes. I like the idea of that company that you recommended, Heather. Much more than buying them, because I’m all about saving a buck, we thrifted every single one of our centerpieces. I would not want to wish ironing all of those tablecloths on anybody. If you’re buying the cheap ones, getting those wrinkles out are hard.

Heather: I opted to get them dry cleaned.

Jamie: Wasn’t that expensive?

Heather: This is helpful. These are ideas of how to help your clients. I went and got them dry cleaned and they were under $10 each to dry clean, plus they were super cheap linen. They were still more affordable than going to a rental company.

Jamie: When I looked at dry cleaning, it looked way more expensive than what I wanted to spend time doing.

Heather: Do you want to invest the time or do you want to invest the money? That’s what it comes down to my projects always. What’s nice about this solution is it does allow you to do it yourself, but takes away some of the risks and the complication of having the materials forever in your garage. Maybe after the quarantine’s over, you can get over on OfferUp and start selling that stuff.

Jamie: We all know I’m not going to do that. I’m going to complain about it sitting in my garage for the next three years until we move, and then I might get rid of it or I go, “One day, I might sell this so I’m not going to get rid of it.” Let’s be honest. That’s more likely how it’s going to go.

Heather: It’s a challenge for us. This time of us all being trapped in our homes lets us sit for hours and hours and look at the items that we’ve been meaning to get rid of. On that note, this is why you want to use a rental company that is convenient, affordable and easy. You can recommend that to your clients. Marie, we appreciate you taking the time with us, especially during this chaotic season. I’m sure you’ve got your hands full over there with your team. We appreciate you and your help in this industry to make things wonderful for couples and that perfectionism being put into good use.

Marie: Thank you, guys. I love being part of the show. It was great talking with you.

Heather: Where can they find you?

Marie: Go to RentMyWedding.com. Follow us on social media. We do all of our special offers there on Instagram. Check our Stories. We do special offers there. I’m sure if you subscribe to The Union Podcast email list, we’ll probably be doing some type of promo there as well.

Heather: I’m excited for folks to get in contact with you. Vendors, you should be an affiliate for them or you should be setting up this whole plan where you’re basically working with them to offer new services. This is a great time to be considering those options as we’re riding some crazy waves in this industry. We hope that Marie has been helpful for you. Thanks for being here with us.

Marie: Thank you.

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