We were lucky to catch up with Esther Kim recently and have shared our conversation below.

Esther , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

My husband and I started Happy Party Co at the end of 2021 and our daughters see the ins and outs of us preparing for each event, so I would very much consider this our family business! I think one of the biggest things that work well for us is that we are both grounded in the same why and mission as to why we started this company, and we’re aligned on what we hope it will become. We also have very specific strengths that contribute to the business that are very different from each other, so we’re essentially in our own lane and always respect the other’s opinion when it comes to their wheelhouse. We’ve also made a commitment that if our company ever jeopardizes any aspect of our relationship to the point where it is no longer healthy or sustainable, we reassess and are willing to even stop the business altogether. If our company continues to grow in a way that makes sense for us and our daughters were to ever want to join, I would absolutely love that! It would be an incredible thing to involve your children into something you’ve built from the ground up with the hopes that they could continue the work and love it as much as you do.

Esther , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My husband and I have always loved celebrations – big or small. Whether it’s a major job promotion, a birthday, or even just a Friday after a long week, we are always down to celebrate all the moments that bring our life joy. I also love being organized and am a natural planner at heart. Put those things together, and our event planning business was born! Happy Party Co’s sole mission is to help you celebrate the happiest moments of your life without the stress and anxiety of planning and hosting. I have been a part of countless events where the host of the event is so preoccupied with hosting and making sure their guests have what they need, they aren’t able to enjoy the event at all and if anything, are just relieved that it’s over and they don’t have to plan anymore. We try to eliminate that as much as possible with our full-service event planning to where you simply can walk in to your event and your entire vision has come to life. You can also enjoy the event, catch up with your guests, actually eat the food and have an amazing time! Our hope is that as our client, you can look back on your event and reminisce about how much fun you had, have no regrets about celebrating whatever milestone you achieved, and ultimately want to do it all over again.

Our portfolio include birthdays, baby showers, and more but one of our big specializations is Korean 1st Birthdays. My husband and I are both Korean-American and when our parents were growing up in Korea, many children unfortunately would not survive past their first birthday due to malnutrition, low resources, and lack of modern medicine. So when a baby would make it to his/her first birthday, their family would throw a big celebration that incorporated many traditional elements like fruit, rice cakes, and a doljabi ceremony. Those same traditions stay alive with us today and we’ve added a bit of a modern spin. In Korean, the event is called a Doljanchi and they are a big deal with people loving to go all out! I planned all three of my daughter’s 1st birthday’s and the stress I felt through the whole process and how it would have been so nice to work with a planner was how Happy Party Co was born. We are so proud to be an AAPI-owned business and our dream is to carry on these special traditions to our children and every generation after.

What I believe sets us apart is that we do our best to build a meaningful relationship with each of our clients – building trust and taking the time to understand what their vision and style is. Working with us is not a revolving door of cookie cutter services, but a tailored, customized experience to where we hope our clients feel like they can trust us to create something magical for them. Event planning is very much a people facing job, and we absolutely love meeting and working with our clients, some even flourishing into real friendships!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

When you’re in any sort of customer service industry like event planning, I believe one of the biggest factors of success is consistency. We do our best to only take on the number of clients we can handle without ever compromising quality, so that we can deliver the same level of service, communication, and attention to detail to every event. Our business has a “small-batch” mentality with it being just the two of us running the whole show and as result, each celebration we execute is a curated experience. Outside of Instagram, most of our business has come from simply word of mouth and referrals. We are so honored to be a part of this community and have the chance to work with amazing vendors that support one another and always ready to cheer each other on.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Jonathan and I met in college over 14 years ago! We were friends for a few years before actually dating and eventually getting married. Fast forward to today, we just celebrated 11 years of marriage back in March of this year, and currently raising 3 young daughters together. We have been through many hills and valleys as we navigate marriage and parenthood – and I’m so grateful to now add business partner to the list of things we share together. Jonathan is very much the calming sea in the midst of my endless ideas, and while we were apprehensive at first to work together, I now couldn’t imagine anyone else to do this with (right, Jonathan?? ;)

Happy Party Co is truly a labor of love and sometimes what feels like is our 4th child, but it has been incredibly rewarding in many ways. We are beyond thankful to our family, friends, and vendor partners for the constant love and support, and even trusting us in our very early days with little to no experience! The sky is the limit with this little company of ours, and we can’t wait to see what’s to come.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://happypartyco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happypartyco/

Image Credits
Baby Shu Photo YoungB Photography Euntae Kim Photography