We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandy Bickham a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brandy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The climax of same sex couples marriage was how I came up with my idea! To give a little background, I will start here, lol. The supreme court and some states were already toying with the fact of all US states being able to marry same sex couples. As a person who adores love, my passion has always been to see anyone be in love with who they chose, whether same sex or heterosexual. I said to myself “I need to be apart of this in some way because I would marry them”. I researched and realized that this is what I wanted to do for ANYONE, so I applied to be a notary public and the rest is history.

Brandy, 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?

I am a full-notary/officiant service business. With my notary, I specialize in all notary needs in SC. As a notary, I can do the following:

Take acknowledgments
Administer oaths and affirmations
Execute attestations and jurats
Witness signatures
Take verifications of fact
Perform marriage ceremonies (SC Code of Laws §20-1-20)
Perform any other acts authorized by law
Being a notary of SC, my specialty is performing marriage ceremonies under the business name Be Wed By B. My Be Wed By B is a spin-off of my notary services. With Be Wed By B, I specialize in wedding ceremonies, wedding director, and coordinator services.

I am also an ordained minister est. 2021.
With this service I am available to marry anyone in the world.
I have traveled beyond my home state of SC to marry couples.

I do however specialize in the “wedding anywhere” option. This can be for your home, office, parks, etc. I go to couples who are non traditional and wish to be married at their place of choice! THESE are my FAVORITE and most booked ceremonies.

When clients aren’t traditional and wish to do things their way, have a ceremony that is designed for them only, they call me! I also specialize in non religious ceremonies that focus mainly on the couples. That is what sets me apart from the rest. Most of my clients book me from word of mouth or referrals because they love my ceremonies.

Conversations about M&A are often focused on multibillion dollar transactions – but M&A can be an important part of a small or medium business owner’s journey. We’d love to hear about your experience with selling businesses.

Other than me being an officiant and notary, I had a thriving shuttle business in the upstate of SC. I specialized in making unique shuttle rides to and from. Example: want a girls night out and want to be safe, I was available to make sure that you got to your destination and back home without having to use Uber and the whole party could be together. Unfortunately, this business was a tad bit slower in the upstate than in bigger cities. My shuttle provided personalized rides (and complimentary drinks) to my clients.

I was approached by another business owner to buy my business and since I wasn’t making a lot of money I decided to sell. I sold my business in 2022. My business idea was genius but it was so hard for me to get it off the ground. I learned that some businesses take a little more time than others to get started and see a profit. I have learned now that you cant automatically make a profit, you have to give a business a few years to be successful.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

My initial capital and funding for my business came from a savings account and I used my credit union to fund the shuttle. I used my own money from saving over years to fund my own business so I didn’t need a business loan for start up. I used my credit union as a back up and it worked out perfectly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bewedbyb.wixsite.com/mysitebewed
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bewedbyb
• Other: notaryservicesbybrandy.com