Despite Warnings, Friends Go Into Business Together

Despite Warnings, Friends Go Into Business Together

By: Maggie Wolff Peterson
Special to The Winchester Star

Debbie Rhodes and Pam Fahnestock have been best friends for 20 years. Like many girlfriends, they met at work.

“We instantly became friends,” Rhodes said. “We just knew we wanted to be friends.”

Like most girlfriends, they enjoy doing things together.

Debbie Rhodes (far left) and Pam Fahnestock, co-owners of A Gift to Remember, offer a video-taping service for special events.
(Photo by Ginger Perry)

They’re addicted to “American Idol,” meeting weekly at each other’s homes to have dinner, watch the television show and critique the singers. When the competition concludes, “we’ll have a grand finale party,” Rhodes said.

Like some girlfriends, their natural character traits complement each other’s. Where Rhodes is more outgoing, Fahnestock is more reserved. Fahnestock is the organized one; Rhodes lives more in the moment.

Like lucky girlfriends, their husbands get along. The couples have taken vacations together, hosted monthly dinner parties, and watched each other’s children grow up.

But unlike the majority of girlfriends, Rhodes and Fahnestock are not only buddies, but business partners as well.

They founded An Affair To Remember in Winchester two years ago, when Rhodes enlarged her home-based video editing business and moved it downtown, where Fahnestock was already operating an after-school educational tutoring business.

What got the ball rolling was Rhodes’ daughter’s wedding. “Debbie’s daughter was getting married and needed a coordinator,” Fahnestock said. Fahnestock had experience coordinating events, having been a marketing director before going into business for herself.

With Rhodes’ experience in video production and Fahnestock’s in event planning, a business was born. The two decided to name it after their favorite movie.

“It has Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant,” Fahnestock said. “It’s one of the best romantic movies of all time. A real tear-jerker.”

At first, they weren’t sure exactly how the business would grow. They’d come up with the name before knowing precisely what they were selling.

Debbie Rhodes (left) and Pam Fahnestock, co-owners of A Gift to Remember on the Loudoun Street Mall, turned part of the store into a Patsy Cline section until the organization, Celebrating Patsy Cline, opens a museum dedicated to the Winchester native.
(Photo by Ginger Perry)

In the beginning, “we both had other jobs and we did this on the side,” Fahnestock said. But steadily, calls came in for video services. People wanted weddings taped or family photo albums converted to video. Eventually, the duo had to pare down the scope of their work.

“The video business took off so much that we no longer do [event] coordinating,” Fahnestock said.

Today, An Affair To Remember also houses A Gift To Remember, the gift shop that Fahnestock and Rhodes opened after the Kurtz Cultural Center on Cameron Street discontinued being a visitor center. There a shopper will find Apple Blossom Festival T-shirts and Virginia wine products, apple crisp baking mix and novelty golf balls imprinted with Confederate flags. A child-sized T-shirt proclaims, “I’m living proof that Virginia is for Lovers!”

Now, running the company is a more-than-full-time job.

“Our business has grown, which is amazing. And we’re still best friends. That’s the really amazing thing,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes and Fahnestock search their minds to find an instance when they have ever disagreed, and after a long pause, determine that they never have.

“Pam and I have stretched our brains to think of a time when we’ve had a disagreement,” Rhodes said. “And we just haven’t. As unbelievable as that is, we have never had a disagreement. We just agree. We just discuss what we need for the business, and go with the flow. I know that’s really hard to believe, but we’ve never had an argument.”

Ronnie Rhodes, Debbie’s husband, concurs. “It works out well. They work well together. I’m glad she has a job that she enjoys going to,” he said.

“When Debbie and I got into this, we felt we had the same personality,” Fahnestock said. Instead, the friends have discovered the differences that complement each other.

Fahnestock likes video editing, sitting behind the console of computers and monitors that combine images and music to make a finished piece.

“I can sit for hours,” she said.

Rhodes is the face of the business, up front in the retail store. “She likes the distraction,” Fahnestock said. “I feel that Debbie is the reason for our success, because of her personality and the way she treats people.”

When a friend’s mother was hospitalized, Rhodes and Fahnestock helped with the hospital vigil, spending every night there for a month, “so [she] wouldn’t have to be by herself,” Rhodes said.

And when Fahnestock grieved the death of her three-month-old grandson, Rhodes helped her through it.

“We’re there for everything,” Rhodes said. “We have so much history together.”

The friends, minus husbands, have taken the kids to Niagara Falls, held pajama parties, taken a girls’ weekend in New York City, and celebrated the 80th birthday of Rhodes’ mother.

And together, Rhodes and Fahnestock have logged their share of 10-hour workdays, particularly between May and December — from Apple Blossom, through wedding season, into the holidays. “When I go home, my husband doesn’t know 90 percent of the things that go on here,” Fahnestock said.

The success of the business has led the partners to begin adding part-time help, and to open on Sundays.

Fahnestock and Rhodes agree, it’s because of their differences that the business works so well. Warned that partnering in business would ruin their friendship, the two have proved the forecasters wrong.

“It’s just worked for us,” Rhodes said. “We’d give up the business before we’d give up the friendship.”

Originally Published In The Winchester Star On May 20, 2005