Ep. 05 How to Respond To Things Out of Your Control

Kim Sirkin of Blue Satin Bee Wedding Planning shares about environmental sustainability in wedding planning, dealing with life when things are out of control, and the importance of boundaries.

When it comes to weddings, Kim Sirkin knows how to make them fun, festive, and free of stress. Having married her own husband in the middle of a hurricane, and attended over 500 weddings or receptions, she has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Since 2019, Kim and her mom have been making weddings stress free for the bride and groom. At Blue Satin Bee, they offer a variety of plans including Wedding Management and both full and partial wedding planning. In addition to the wonderful packages offered, Kim and her mother are also showing the industry that sustainable events can be gorgeous, classic, and memorable, not just brown and crunchy.

When Kim is not planning a bride's dream wedding, you can find her hanging at the beach or outside with her husband and (almost!) three year old! Fun Fact: Kim has been to 3 continents, which include 12 countries and 38 states!   

Interview Transcription

Ashley Baxter 00:09

Hey, it's Ashley and I am so excited for you to be tuning into this episode with my interview of Kim Sirkin the owner of Blue Satin Bee Wedding Planning in Southeastern North Carolina. We talk about so many things in this episode from how she runs her business, about it being about sustainability and how they try to incorporate that into the wedding business. To them having elopement packages right now which is very popular and important during this time of social distancing. And but throughout it all, regardless if you are a bride, a groom, or even care anything about weddings right now, she constantly throughout the entire interview, drops all these nuggets about valuing yourself, about dealing with hard times and overcoming just things that are out of your control, and so much more. Also near the end, you get to see my fairy goddaughter because in case you didn't know, I'm a fairy godmother, minus the magic. Don't tell her that - but tons of glitter and tons of fairy wings that I have bought along the years. But you get to see her make an appearance when she wakes up from her nap. And you'll get to hear her if you're listening to this. And then the very end is going to tie up the episode with some thoughts I had, from things that she shared that really stuck out to me. So without further ado, here's the episode. I'm here with my friend Kim Sirkin, owner of Blue Satin Bee. Hey, Kim, I'm so excited for you to be here. Hi.

Kim Sirkin 01:39

Yeah, I'm excited to

Ashley Baxter 01:41

Well, how about you give people just a snapshot of your life. Where do you live? Who do you live with all that jazz.

Kim Sirkin 01:47

Yes. So I live in Southport, North Carolina and I live here with my husband and our daughter who is about to turn three in August. And then we have two dogs, Jenny and Jonah. Who if you see us out and about you see us on social media, you are bound to me, because they are definitely our original children. Before Abby. And yeah, I mean, if you're not familiar with the Southport area, we typically tell people "Safe Haven" that kind of comes up in conversation. And it's right here on the, you know, North Carolina coast right for you down in South Carolina.

Ashley Baxter 02:25

It's a very beautiful town. Very beautiful place. And yeah. Well, let's ask a few little lightning round questions to get things started. So Jiffy, or Peter Pan - is that what it's called? Peanut butter?

Kim Sirkin 02:43

Peter Pan.

Ashley Baxter 02:44

Sorry. Good, good. Or is it Jif, not Jiffy? Yeah. Anyway, yeah. But you know what I was going and it just helped me out. So that was right.

Kim Sirkin 02:53

You had a bias.

Ashley Baxter 02:54

Yeah. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Kim Sirkin 02:59

Ha. So my senior year of high school, I wanted to be a wedding planner. Which is funny how, yeah, that comes back around. But I would say originally as a small child, I think I just wanted to be a princess.

Ashley Baxter 03:13

I love it.

Kim Sirkin 03:14

We're still working on that one.

Ashley Baxter 03:16

"Saved By the Bell, "which character would you most likely been of the girls?

Kim Sirkin 03:21

I'm gonna say Kelly just because even before my husband's name was Zach, like I, of course, like I was, you know, pretty into Zach. I would say, Lisa, but I'm not, I'm not a Screech, man.

Ashley Baxter 03:34

Hmm.

Kim Sirkin 03:35

Yeah

Ashley Baxter 03:35

That's okay.

Kim Sirkin 03:36

Definitely not Jesse. No offense, Jesse if you're listening, but, yeah.

Ashley Baxter 03:40

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Okay. And last question. Is it wrong for vegetarians to eat animal crackers?

Kim Sirkin 03:49

Only if they bite their heads off first.

Ashley Baxter 03:51

Yeah, perfect. I agree with that. And that's a good

Kim Sirkin 03:54

I mean, even that I'm not a vegetarian, but that's how I eat animal crackers.

Ashley Baxter 04:00

I'm gonna reevaluate how I eat them for now on that. Well, how about you share about Blue Satin Bee and what you do?

Kim Sirkin 04:08

Sure, yeah, so Blue Satin Bee is actually pretty new. Um, we officially started Blue Satin Bee back in mid-October of 2019. However, before it was Blue Satin Bee, we sort of just kind of as needed worked with couples. Mostly with day of with wedding direction, things like that. And they were typically couples that my dad was the DJ for. That's kind of how all this evolved. My dad is a wedding DJ has been a DJ my entire life. Um, fun fact, at 15 I DJ my first wedding solo, which is crazy to think that somebody hired a 15 year old to DJ their wedding. The wedding industry was a little different back then. And so you know, it kind of evolved from there. I grew up in the wedding industry, I was pretty familiar wit