The right tent for the event

A customer had one idea, but Tents Tents Tents pitched a better option that convinced her to increase the budget.

When a customer requested several small tents for one night of an Indian wedding to be hosted at her home around a pool, Cumming, Ga.-based Tents Tents Tents partner William Flynn suggested an option that made the customer happy to expand the budget.

“The customer originally called us asking for 10-by-20s and 20-by-20s on all of the terraces,” Flynn says. “She wanted to fit the tents around her pool and pool house. We scheduled a site visit and found out her desire to cover the entire space with tenting. The problem was that she wanted to leave the pool uncovered because she was having a pool party on Sunday and wanted to be in the sun.”

Flynn scheduled the takedown on Saturday so that the homeowner would have the space available on Sunday. Once that was settled, the company suggested using one tent over the entire area.

“She loved that idea and agreed to it right off the bat,” Flynn says. “She had a budget for the smaller tents, but once we put the idea into her head of covering the entire space, she was able to stretch the budget for this installation. When you offer the customer the right tenting for the job, budgets can go out the window.”

Tents Tents Tents installed a 40-by-60-foot Future Trac frame tent with a large crystal chandelier and also supplied round, rectangular and cocktail tables; linens; and 150 chairs. The biggest challenge for the installation crew would be the terrain, which dropped off 6.5 feet from the high side where the pool house was located to the low side of the house. Included in this terrain were exotic pine trees planted after the site visit, which the crew wasn’t entirely prepared for.

“These trees were $2,500-plus so we had to be extremely careful,” Flynn says. “Another problem was the wall of windows we were working against on the house. It was a newly renovated house so the fear of hitting a window with a pipe was a constant worry. We had all day to do the installation so we made sure we took our time to be extra careful. We typically send three people to a standard 40-by-60-foot frame tent installation, but this time we sent seven.”

The install day was especially hot, but the crew endured while avoiding damage to trees and windows, so Flynn can laugh about the worst moment: dropping a chandelier piece in the pool.
“We made it through the entire installation without dropping the pins in the pool,” he says. “I was hanging additional dangle pieces that had fallen off and it just slid out of my hand when someone was handing me the part and it went into the pool. The funniest part (to everyone else) was the fact that I was not prepared that it was a saltwater pool when I went under, so that was a surprise. We have done many installations around pools and on Lake Lanier, and we have a running bet that whoever drops something in the water has to go get it and buy everyone lunch, so I lost twice that day.”