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Royal Restrooms’ vintage series bathroom trailer has a polished shine, which allows it to blend with its surroundings. It will be available for rental in the Richmond area later this year. (Photo courtesy Royal Restrooms)
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Royal Restrooms’ four-stall portable bathroom can accommodate 200 to 250 wedding guests and is a luxury alternative to a porta-potty. (Photo courtesy Royal Restrooms)
Whether you’re the bride or the ring bearer, at some point during the wedding, you will have to visit the restroom. As couples plan weddings, the top of the list often includes the dress, the venue and the food, but what should also be taken into consideration is the bathroom. If you’re hosting your event at an indoor venue, chances are there will be proper facilities, but if you’re hosting an affair in an open field, riverside or at a private residence, the unspoken truth is often, “Where will people go to relieve themselves?”
This can lead to the concert festival fallback of porta-potties, but at weddings, people are usually in formalwear and using a dark, cramped stall isn’t ideal. There’s the added inconvenience of unwanted odors, a lack of air conditioning and, often, no place to wash your hands.
One surprisingly satisfactory solution to this conundrum is a restroom trailer. Many are set up as traditional restrooms with flushable porcelain toilets, private stalls and sinks. They can also offer heating and air conditioning, music played through built-in speakers and even tasteful decor.
“Our restroom trailers are fully functioning restrooms,” says David Sauers, co-owner of Royal Restrooms. “There’s a vanity, there’s wallpaper, there is a mirror, it’s climate-controlled, you have a porcelain sink, you have hot and cold water, you have soap, you have paper towels. ... It’s everything that you expect normally about going to the bathroom, except now you’re able to do it wherever you want, and you still have the privacy of taking that moment of silence, you know, you’re, as Charmin says, enjoying the go. We want you to enjoy the go.”
People don’t put as much importance on it as they probably should.
—David Sauers, co-owner of Royal Restrooms
Sauers co-founded the Savannah, Georgia-based business with Roert Glisson 20 years ago, and the company has since expanded through franchising with 50 locations across 17 states. Its Lynchburg office services the Richmond area. The business offers multiple options, from a single-stall trailer to a 10-stall mobile unit. Their newest offering is a vintage series restroom trailer with a polished stainless-steel exterior that creates a mirror effect, allowing the trailer to blend with its surroundings. Sauers says they’re planning to make it available in the Richmond area by the end of summer.
While restroom trailer businesses such as Royal Restrooms do strive for ease of service, there is more to consider than just calling a company and asking them to drop off a mobile bathroom. Andrew Owens, co-owner of Richmond Restroom Trailers, says there are three critical factors to consider.
Richmond Restroom Trailers’ five-stall mobile bathroom features amenities including double vanity sinks, decor, towels and climate control. (Photo courtesy Richmond Restroom Trailers)
“One is delivery. We need it on a level surface, and preferably on a hard surface. We’re realistic in knowing that these events at venues, often we’re in the grass; we just want people to understand that this is pulled by a truck,” Owens says. “No. 2: It has to be within 100 feet of an electrical source, that is, a 20-amp dedicated circuit.” Without this, the trailer loses power and air conditioning. “The third component is water,” Owens says. “Ideally, we want to be within 100 feet of a water hookup, but we can do it two ways: We can onboard water and bring it to you or we can fill it up onsite. We have a 200-gallon holding tank in the trailer.”
Owens notes that 200 gallons should be enough for a 250- to 300-person event, even considering alcohol consumption, which often leads to more trips to the facilities. He adds that, for alcohol-free events, the tank can easily accommodate more than twice that number of people.
Richmond Restroom Trailers offers three-, four- and five-stall mobile bathrooms. Owens started the business with Matt McVicar six months ago after realizing they could combine their collective strengths. Owens is a longtime industry veteran assisting in the operation of Clements Tent Rentals in Warsaw (which also services the Richmond region) with his sister-in-law and father-in-law. McVicar also manages a construction company and a sewer business.
“For the party event rental business, [restroom trailers are] an easy add-on,” Owens says. “[We’re] designing the [client’s] layout, where they want their tables, their chairs, their ceremony, so adding that component into the mix and having ownership of it really just makes it really easy for us.”
When considering the size of the trailer needed for a wedding, Sauers says a good rule of thumb is to base it on 75 to 100 people per stall, so theoretically a 100-person event could get by with a single-stall rental. However, he says he typically recommends 50 to 75 people per stall to avoid long lines of guests waiting for their turn.
Generally, couples should budget around $1,500 for a restroom trailer. When compared with the cost of renting a portable toilet, which averages $150, it’s understandable why couples would gravitate toward the cheaper option when they’re already investing thousands of dollars into a wedding, but the benefits of hiring a trailer may exceed the price.
“People don’t put as much importance on it as they probably should,” says Sauers of renting restroom trailers.
He notes opting for a restroom trailer is the equivalent of providing your guests with a full bathroom experience. “It is a bathroom, but it’s not a traditional porta-john. It doesn’t have that smell, it’s flushing toilets, it’s rushing water,” Sauers says. “It’s a pleasant and inviting place to be.”
