Meet Nan Hardin of White Azalea Estate Inc

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nan Hardin.

Hi Nan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My husband, Fred, and I are the proud owners of White Azalea. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be in the wedding business. It all goes back to growing up in Ocean Springs, MS, and being a part of First Baptist Church. My mama, Mamie Hodges, and her friends hosted many wedding receptions and showers in the activities building at the church, and she wasn’t shy about recruiting the family to help. We also hosted an annual Christmas party for my dad’s employees at the Coca-Cola company that took several days of preparation with the family and neighbors helping. I loved helping and have always enjoyed hosting events. In 2011, our family planned three weddings – ours and my two oldest daughters’. That renewed my desire to have a wedding venue, and we decided to make that dream a reality. Fred and I began the search for the perfect location to own a venue in 2018. We even considered purchasing an existing venue, but it wasn’t meant to be. We traveled to Huntsville frequently through the years in my career supporting NASA contracts, and I have always loved Huntsville. It’s a beautiful city with all four seasons, which we didn’t have in south Mississippi or Houston, TX. We began to look for an opportunity to move here and start our venue business. In 2019, my work allowed us to move here, and we were thrilled! We looked at no fewer than 25 properties before finding the perfect location on Jeff Road. We bought the property and began to design our dream venue. The venue project officially started as “Demo Weekend” over Memorial Day 2019.

The entire family came to help us demo the barn, traveling from Florida, Texas, and Massachusetts to be here. The venue name was a family event as well. After considering many options, we settled on White Azalea. “White” because we wanted the venue to be predominantly white, including using the reclaimed rough sawn oak boards that were part of the original barn. “Azalea” because we are Southern, and it was one of my mama’s favorite flowers. I wanted to honor her and the love of event planning that she gave me by making something she loved part of the name. Demo weekend was only the beginning.

Fred and I combined our vision for the venue with a lot of hard work and sweat. We both have many years of experience in project management, and Fred has done a lot of commercial property work through his love of Corvettes. Fred handled the project’s building design, demo, and construction aspects. This was a difficult job, and there were many obstacles that we had to overcome, but it was a labor of love, and he did a phenomenal job. I did all I could to help him and focused on the décor, landscaping, event flow, and business management. Our daughter, Cory, is our marketing manager, and she put her marketing degree to work in creating the venue’s image. From the logo to the website to the styled shoots and the marketing material, she has transformed our vision into a beautiful representation of the White Azalea experience. Our goal was to offer something different to the area. We researched existing venues and used the elegantly rustic and industrial mix. We also wanted a space to accommodate the ceremony and reception for most weddings indoors without flipping the space. We wanted the venue to have a clean, elegant look that would contrast with the original black trusses and the black frames of the windows. We reclaimed the original oak boards and painted them white for the walls in the ceremony and reception areas; we have had so many compliments on the look of the venue and the contrast between the white with accents of black and stained wood. We can accommodate a wedding/event for up to 350 people. The size of the venue also provides a built-in backup plan in the event of bad weather. We are located in Harvest across from Sparkman High School, about a 15-minute drive from Madison, downtown Huntsville, and Bridge Street. Our goal is to provide a personal and flexible experience for our couples throughout the process by providing as much information as possible on our website. Responding quickly to their requests, helping them find the vendors and resources they need, and being onsite during the event to ensure things go according to plan is a huge part of that experience. We had our first wedding in June 2021 and have had over 30 events since then. We recently opened the house on the same property for onsite accommodations for the wedding party and small events such as showers, birthday parties, etc. It has been years in the making, but White Azalea is doing well, and we are enjoying it! It is gratifying to be a part of making people happy. Helping them make their dream come true in our venue has been our motivation for what we’re doing.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a smooth road?
There have been many obstacles to overcome. We started the renovation in May 2019 and were fortunate enough to get much of the construction work done before COVID. The utilities were a much larger project and much more expensive than what we ever anticipated. It was difficult to get contractors to show up to do the work during the pandemic, so we had to do more of the work ourselves. We did everything from digging ditches for utilities to installing HVAC ducts to keep things moving. The delay in the utilities kept us from being ready to open when we had originally planned, but we opened in June 2021 despite all of the obstacles.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
White Azalea Estate is located in the heart of Harvest, Alabama, only 15 miles from downtown Huntsville. It is a family-owned and operated venue; we created the 8,000 sq ft venue from a restored barn filled with elegant, rustic, and industrial touches. Every detail was carefully chosen and pieced together by us, from the whitewashed, reclaimed wooden beams, to the polished concrete floors. This all-in-one space has room for an event for up to 350 people seated, with a dressing room, lounge, caterer’s prep kitchen, and more. Our package includes many services that allow you to enjoy your special day without being concerned about setting up and moving tables and chairs, renting linens, keeping restrooms supplied and cleaning the event space. All of this is provided by our staff with options for day of coordination and onsite accommodations for guests; we take great pride in our venue and would love to help you create the event of your dreams.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Our family has been our greatest support system during converting the venue and operating for events. They came and helped with the demo and have been engaged in what we’re doing every step of the way. They are there to offer encouragement on the bad days and celebrate with us on the good days. They don’t hesitate to travel to the venue to help us with events and open houses. And they offer up suggestions of things we can add or improve as we learn. Our clients also deserve credit. All of our clients and the vendors we work with have helped spread the word about us and recommend us to other clients. We are especially thankful for the clients that originally booked with us before we were open and trusted us with their big day. We were motivated not to let them down, which kept us going.

Contact Info:

• Website: whiteazaleaestate.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whiteazaleaestate/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhiteAzaleaEstate

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