"What a Magnificent Blaze” Our First Market Was a Washout, and a Win 🕯️☔️🌈

On Saturday, May 31st, Evi and I packed up the car at 7 a.m. and headed to the Pittsfield Farmers Market for the first time as vendors for Lit. Candle Co. Our car was full of hand-poured candles, a folding table, and a set of custom ladder shelves we built ourselves. We were excited, nervous, and proud; and it was raining.

By the time we arrived, it was pouring. Thunder cracked in the distance. The grassy area we were assigned quickly turned to mud, and by the time we finished setting up our pop-up tent, the ground underneath us was flooded. Customers avoided our booth simply because they couldn’t get to it.

We moved the entire setup four feet closer to the walkway; soaked, muddy, and laughing through it. A kind vendor next to us jumped in to help. That small gesture mattered more than they knew.

It didn’t stop raining. Our candles got wet. We didn’t have side walls for the tent, so I left Evi to hold things down while I raced out to find a solution. I came back with heavy clear shower curtains (so people could still see inside the booth) and an outdoor rug to cover the muddy ground. We clipped the curtains up with chip clips from our snack bags. The wind kept pulling them down. We kept clipping them back up.

In the end, we made two sales. Not candles. Lighters. and we generated several new customers through our raffle drawing.

We could’ve seen the day as a disaster. A waste of time. A failure. But we didn’t. We saw it for what it was: a trial by rain, and the beginning of something real. We talked about how to redefine success on the ride home; our tent didn't blow away and we gained a fan, a young boy and his pet rabbit Cornelius, from the adjacent tent who loved our free lollipops.

As Marcus Aurelius said: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

What we didn’t know before, we know now:

• We need tent walls.

• We need waterproof packaging.

• We need sandbags, duct tape, and probably more chip clips.

But more than that, we know that we can adapt. We didn’t give up, and we didn’t go home. We stood in the mud and made a shop out of a storm.

So no, the candles didn’t sell. But we showed up. And now we’re not just candle makers, we’re weather-tested business owners.

We’ll be back. Drier, wiser, and more determined.

See you at the next market, hopefully under sunnier skies.

Jaime & Evi

Lit. Candle Co.