Much like every other specialty rental company that popped up at the same time, I started Ultrapom in 2011 after seeing so many fun and interesting decor ideas on wedding blogs, and was frustrated I couldn’t find the same things for rent when working on some friends’ weddings. So of course, what is the solution for that frustration? Start my own business! How hard could it be?!? Well, what I have learned in ten years of business is that rentals are REALLY hard, but we will get into that later.
My idea for Ultrapom at the beginning was to provide specialty tabletop decor on a national level – meaning shipping all over the country. I thought I would be mostly serving areas that didn’t have access to other rental companies, particularly in the Midwest. I quickly learned that Midwest prices are VERY attractive to customers on the coasts, and a majority of my business for several years was in California, North Carolina, and Florida. (But not NYC for some reason. Maybe it’s harder to send and receive packages there? I don’t know).
But my FIRST year, when I was a little baby business, I hardly had any orders. I did $1,600 in GROSS sales that year.
I spent the first few months of the year building my website and amassing inventory by going to thrift stores and estate sales, and sewing table runners. I was working out of my little 2 bedroom house in Downtown Overland Park, our second bedroom as our office.
My official launch was April 11, 2011 at the ReEVENT Expo, a wedding consignment sale and show by Kelly Acock. I thought it was a great fit for what I was trying to do, as I saw renting as a way to reduce buying new things, just as Kelly saw the ReEVENT as an opportunity for people to reuse wedding items. I scrambled to set up a booth, taking part of the chuppah from my own wedding just to use as decor.
That dsiplay led to me making our Branch Chuppah, which was rented for the first wedding I did – which is how I met Jessica Corbett from Hitched Planning + Floral! They did the floral design on our chuppah, and we met at Oakwood Country Club while I was setting the chuppah up (with my dad and husband helping me).
And that brings me to our first day of giveaways and discounts! We are so grateful for making it to ten years in business, and we want to thank both you, our customers, and all our favorite vendors who have supported us through the years. Hitched Planning + Floral was one of our first industry friends, and we are so excited to feature their work with our first giveaway!
GIVEAWAY: We are giving away a $100 flower arrangement from Hitched Planning + Floral! Head over to our Instagram post to enter to win!
DISCOUNT: We are offering 10% off your entire rental order for any new orders placed over the next two weeks during our 10 Days of Ultrapom! Use the code 10YEARS10 at checkout, or mention it in an email when you contact us.
It does NOT apply to any subrentals or custom work – please note that many linen colors on our site are actually subrentals, so even though the code will discount those linens in the checkout, they will not be discounted on your final invoice if we end up needing to subrent them. Feel free to email us to clarify if something is a subrental!
We won’t necessarily have both every day, but I thought it would be a good way to start.
