Wedding Vendor Love: The Little Hire Company
Beautiful celebrations
Christchurch-based business The Little Hire Company knows a LOT about styling New Zealand weddings. We’ve been crushing on their unique hire items and tasteful wedding set ups all year!
Wanting to find out more, we had a chat with the lovely Fallon from TLHC. Read on for some great advice about wedding décor, trends for the coming wedding season, and get Fallon’s top tips for making your wedding look fab!
Can you tell us a little about yourself and what made you decide to start working in the New Zealand wedding industry?
I am a mother of two, our son Ashton is almost three and we also have an 8 month old daughter, Ayah who decided to make her very late arrival into this world on Christmas Day! My partner Tom and I both run TLHC full time, and we surprisingly work really well together (possibly if you asked him he may tell you something different)! We have very different strengths and weaknesses and that works very well for us.
I have always loved celebrating birthdays and holidays but weddings are the biggest party of your life, they bring family and your friends together in a way that you most likely will never experience in the same away again. So I think it’s incredibly special.
I’ve always been creative, loved interior design and loved organising parties so it was more a natural progression into weddings for me.
We love the amazing décor products you offer for hire! But you do much more than décor — what else does The Little Hire Company do?
We have so many big plans for TLHC. In terms of weddings, we are bringing in a lot more bespoke lighting that is not available anywhere else in New Zealand yet, along with furniture. Asides from hire, we set-up between 35-40 weddings each season which is huge, and we are incredibly proud of the work we do. Meeting with couples and helping them bring their ideas into a cohesive design, and then seeing it all come to life on the day is an amazing job for all of us. You have to be very passionate to work in this industry. It is as exciting & satisfying as it is hard work – and I can tell you it is a lot of hard work! Even in my younger days of going out, I was never up until 5am! There is a lot of preparation that goes on before the actual wedding day.
What kinds of trends have you seen come (and go) in NZ weddings and wedding styling? What are the hottest trends for 2018 weddings?
There is just so much to talk about!
Changes
One of the biggest shifts we are seeing are that couples want to be more environmentally friendly, and have less overall stress when it comes to their wedding day. In comparison to 5 years ago, we would have couple’s trying to do it all themselves or purchasing custom signage or bits and pieces thinking it would save them some money. In reality it wasn’t the case and just meant more stuff in the landfill.
Hire trends
NZ couples are also looking for quality linens, in particular our stonewash linen has been incredibly popular. Signage has been increasingly added to the hire list, with acrylic and blonde wood being the top picks.
Setting up on the day of the wedding has been outsourced (and is favourite part of our job)! We offer on-the-day-styling and it gives couples peace of mind that all the details are taken care of.
Styling
Couples are wanting styled weddings, which is a term you would never have heard of even 5 years ago. We offer on-the-day styling which is a bit different to going to a stylist who will typically organise and meet with other vendors (stationery, caterers etc).
We focus on the styling of the ceremony and reception and set-up. Our goal is to take imagery that couples like, see what they love about it and then suggest a cohesive style that will work based on those images, their venue and of course their budget.
The biggest style trend for last season, and the upcoming season is loose foliage garlands with glass candle holders weaved throughout. When we are working with couples, we always emphasis timelessness over fad trends – we don’t want our clients looking back after 10 years and thinking how dated their décor was. We are always on-trend with our hire items, but it comes down to how they are styled to how they will live up to the decades and that is always our goal.
Colour palettes
Soft pastels, in particular blush are still popular, and we are still seeing deep reds.
My personal love at the moment is blush pink and mustard. It is set to make more of a splash for the 2019 season, but we would love to see a few pop up for the upcoming wedding season.
Do you have any tips for engaged New Zealanders looking to style on a budget? What should they prioritise in terms of décor and styling that will have the biggest impact?
For couples wanting a styled wedding, your biggest investment should be the actual set-up of your wedding. Work with the company to come up with something that will work for you and your budget.
We do that in a few ways – we ask to see photos the couple likes and figure out exactly what they like about those images. Once we have an idea of the budget we can then suggest the best way to get what they want that will work for them within that. We want to create incredible weddings where our couples and their guests walk in and are wow-ed. Because that is always the goal, we want our clients to get the most bang for their buck and I think we do a really good job at suggesting ways that they can get that within their budget. It goes the other way as well – I’ve told couples that they don’t need to spend extra money on some things when it’s going to make their overall styling too busy, and take away from other elements.
Not all NZ hire companies are the same, find one that styles and can do the set-up. And don’t forget to look at their previous work.
What are the benefits of getting professionals to set up/pack down a wedding rather than DIYing it?
Setting up for your wedding is a huge and important job, and it’s very often overlooked.
You’ve spent money hiring items, getting custom signage, and beautiful flowers but it doesn’t always mean that once you’ve set it all up it will look beautifully styled. There are so many logistical and health and safety issues to think about as well, especially when it comes to installations and lighting. Hiring someone to do this for you means they liaise with the venue and other vendors, sort out all aspects of your day so there are no hiccups and then of course style ceremony and reception beautifully. It is so much more than just showing up and setting up some tables, so if it is in your budget this is a must!
Can you share your favourite wedding moment?
I have quite a few, but this one sticks out the most.
We spent about 6 hours styling and setting up a beautiful Tipi wedding in blistering heat – hanging installs and lighting as well as florals for the tables and it all looked beautiful. We were just packing away to leave and the bride and her bridesmaids had come down to have a look before they headed to the ceremony site. The bride stopped and stared... and then started crying. My heart was thumping, so many things running through my mind – she hated it I thought, what on earth had we done wrong… so many things racing through my head at that stage. She then come over to me and hugged me, thanked us and said it looked more amazing than she ever could have imagined. Best moment ever (and she didn’t ruin her perfect makeup either thank goodness)!
If you want to check out more from The Little Hire Company, you can visit their website.