27/05/2024
It’s summer, my best headshot is from the fall, and my house is covered in “preschoolers home every day for the next few months” mess. Feels like it’s time for an introduction!
Hi, I’m Stefanie Burkhart. I’m the owner and lead designer at KC Bloom, a boutique wedding floral studio in Overland Park, Kansas. I came to a love of flowers and gardening later in life, so I don’t have magical stories of picking sweet peas in my grandmother’s garden or harvesting ripe tomatoes with my mom. I was just born with the how-hard-could-it-be gene and dove in headfirst.
I went to a small college just south of Chicago, where I played soccer, performed in the musical, sang in a select chorus, and basically had a wonderful time. I also majored in English Education, but the order in which I listed that factoid is also the order in which I cared about it 🥴 My junior year, I did my first classroom shadow at a high school and promptly dropped the education portion of my degree. So, I graduated with a degree in English and no idea how to use it. I ultimately joined a family friend’s firm as a marketing specialist, and found a wonderful career path. For the next 12 years, I worked with architecture, engineering, and construction companies as a proposal writer, branding and graphic designer, and other marketing activities.
I’m originally from Michigan, moved to Oklahoma City in 2012, then Seattle in 2013, and finally landed in Kansas City in 2016. Shortly after moving here, I met my handsome, supportive, and hilarious husband (5 years of internet dating finally paid off!) and we were married about 10 months later at the elderly ages of 37 & 38, respectively.
About a year into marriage, I left the corporate world to start a floral design studio. Not long after that, we found out my geriatric body was pregnant and I took a break to have my baby girl. Then 13 months later, we had a little boy. Yes, we are very tired.
That’s a long story very short, but here I am now, running a wedding and event floral design company while wrangling two small children and a jumpy puppy. It’s a wild ride, and I absolutely love it.