You Geaux Girl: Meet Bridget Tate of Capital City Lighting

Lighting design, networking, dance moves, and being a total boss babe in a predominately male industry — there’s so much we can learn from Bridget Tate of Capital City Lighting! She’s been lighting up Baton Rouge since 2014, and she’s a local gal you need to know.

ABOUT CAPITAL CITY LIGHTING:

• Founded in 2019
• Located at 6951 Exchequer Drive
• Sister company of Capital City Design

Bridget works with homeowners, architects, interior designers, contractors, business owners and restauranteurs to select and curate lighting based on their style and budget.

GETTING STARTED AS A STAY AT HOME MOM

What do you do after being a stay-at-home mom for 13 years?

If you’re Bridget Tate, you get a “part-time” job only to discover your true passion and end up building an entire company from the ground up.

With raising four kids at home, she landed a side-gig as a sales person for a local lighting store.

But people loved her as much as she loved it, and eventually she had so many clients that she had to go full-time.

At the time, her clientele was mostly people working on small renovations. But she started learning more about the industry and realized there was a whole market they were missing out on — working with builders, contractors and architects.

She dove into educating herself not just on decorative lighting, but on the whole aspect of lighting for a home or commercial property: color temperature, LED lighting, garage lights, flood lights, doorbells and so on.

Although it was daunting at first, she threw herself into learning all she could — and stepping up her networking game to meet more clients.

Eventually, she knew it was time to venture out on her own. She started small with creating an Instagram account (@this_lil_light_o_mine) where she could share and start to grow.

In 2019, she was offered an opportunity by her now-business partner Toby Courville. He was transitioning his flooring business into a more boutique-feel business Capital City Design Center.

He asked Bridget to partner with him — of course she said yes — and Capital City Lighting was born.

Fast forward to today, and you can see some of her work in a few of our favorite local places like The River Room, K Street, Tin Roof, Rocca, The Hope Shop, Cocha and Lighthouse Coffee.

THE NETWORKING QUEEN

I met Bridget through a Southern Flair Happy Hour Club networking event, and it’s no surprise she’s growing her business through building relationships and telling everyone about her business.

Whether she’s getting her tires rotated or standing in line at the grocery store, she’s always meeting people through friendly conversation.

I had to know her networking secrets. How do you just strike up a conversation? How do you “learn” to network?

“I’m just friendly,” she said. “I just talk to people. Number one though, is it can’t be forced.”

Bridget happens to work in a male-dominated industry of contractors, builders and architects, but she’s found networking with the women in the room has had its benefits.

“When you go into these networking events, everyone is trying to network with the builder,” she said. “My target is builders, but for me it was easier to network with parallel people like friends or subcontractors. Then they recommend you. It’s not always a straight line to your target.”

Bridget recommends finding the women in your industry that you can in return support and recommend them. She also believes in saying yes to every opportunity… because you don’t know where it will lead.

“If someone asks me to get drinks in my field, I say yes… even if I’m tired,” she said. “Things grow from those meetings, so I always try not to say no.”

She also reminds herself that you don’t always see the potential from certain connections or opportunities at first.

“Growth isn’t always monetary,” she said. “Sometimes you have opportunities that you need to seize, and that’s also a gain. Eventually, it will turn into a financial gain.”

For example, Bridget was asked to participate in and donate to a local fundraising event. She donated the lights at cost to her. But she saw it as an opportunity for good exposure, not a wasted expense. In the end, she got a new client and joined forces with an electrician, which was a contact she needed. Now, when people purchase lights and need them installed, she can send business his way.

“It all worked out,” she said. “I feel like there’s opportunities everywhere, and it’s not always financial.”

DANCING AS A BABYCAKE

One major way Bridget has been able to network and build relationships is through dancing as a Babycake! The Babycakes are Baton Rouge’s parade marching dance troupe.

“That’s a whole other network thing thing, but I didn’t even mean for it to be,” she said. “Being around all those women who are independent, strong minded and supportive really gave me the strength to be able to go out on my own. I was so supported and figured ‘why not?'”

Four years ago, Bridget joined the Babycakes through her sister-in-law, who’s also a Babycake. She invited Bridget to be a “Mom” (Man on March) for a parade season. After you’re a Mom for a season, you can be invited to be a Babycake.

“It’s a great group to be apart of. It’s like having 30 best friends.” she said. “I’ve never been in a group of women who are so supportive.”

Even as a busy business owner and mom of four, Bridget said she doesn’t mind at all making time for practice or parades.

“I never got to take dance, and I always wanted to,” she said. “Babycakes is fulfilling that for me.”

FUTURE GOALS FOR CAPITAL CITY LIGHTING

A little over a year in, Bridget spends her days running her show room, meeting with clients and growing her business. Right now, she’s doing it all from making deliveries, checking on job sites, running her social media, and creating content for her blog.

Looking forward, her main goal is to grow her team and even possibly look into an additional location. As people continue to learn about her and Capital City Lighting, she wants more hands on deck to better serve her local community.

You can shop with her on her website and follow her on Instagram at @ccitylighting

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