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

SARA, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

This farm has been in the Shepherd family since 1942. We are the 3rd generation working and operating the farm. It was the intention of the Shepherd family to run a traditional farm with 250 head of beef cattle and 10 acres of tobacco. Then my husband and I took over in 2000 and he was more interested in conservation and land, water, timber and wildlife management. For 20 years he put his conservation skills to practice on the farm to get it where it is today. We are a certified tree farm, a stewardship farm and a conservation farm.
In 2012 the opportunity to host a wedding just fell into our laps. Little did we know that hosting that one wedding would also impact our family business. The wedding guest kept telling us how beautiful the farm was, thanks to Mr. Shepherds conservation efforts, and why weren’t we dong weddings all the time? Fast forward to today, and we are now hosting 60 to 80 weddings a year, with international couples coming to the farm to host their weddings.
After being together for 45 years and married for 41 years, my husband passed away from liver cancer in January of 2024. I found myself in charge of our 700 acre farm with some knowledge, but he was always the driving force. I have had to adapt and preserver in ways I did not know I had in me. My driving force is to be sure that I honor his legacy which is our legacy as well as moving the farm forward successfully for my children and grandchildren.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into weddings by chance, purely by chance.. lol. Our thinking was we wanted to do some kind of eco-tourism on the farm. Then we hosted a wedding and now we are hosting 60 to 80.
The guest that came to the wedding had such a strong reaction to the farm, its beauty and our barns are so charming. Now this was before barn weddings had taken off in the wedding industry, so we were one of the first in our area to host barn weddings. We decided to do some upgrades to the barn and the next year we had 12 weddings and then the next we had 26.. now we have 60 to 80 a year with the addition of our new year round venue, Keith Glen, that we built in 2016.
I had no business background or entrepreneurial spirit, I have learned everything myself through trail and error and there has been lots of errors. but that is how you grow and refine your business practices. I have learned so much more from my failures than I have my successes.
Luckily my children had stepped up and want to help run the business. You never know, your children might have other dreams and pursuits. It has been exciting to me so see my children take an interest in the farm and the business and become involved since their father passed.
I think the biggest thing that sets us apart from other wedding venues is the history of our farm and the legacy of my husband, it is all tied into the business and our mission. There are a lot of venues that have been built in our area, land is purchased and a venue is built. However our family farm is the most important aspect of our business and sharing the beauty of the farm with couples carries on my husbands vision and legacy.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

You just take it for granted that you will be with your spouse, at least into your 70’s maybe even 80’s. When Mr Shepherd was diagnosed with terminal cancer, that was my focus. The business took a back seat at that time, I made some mistakes I will admit as far as handling certain situations and issues that came up during that time frame. However, I kept the business going, working a full time job outside of the home and taking care of Mr. Shepherd. It was the most challenging time in my life. Am I doing this right, should I do something different, what am I doing. You second guess everything in your life. I thought about selling the farm several times, everywhere I look has his footprint. But then I realized that this was his legacy, this was his vision, this was his life’s work and I needed to be sure I carried it forward into the future the best way I could.
This has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding was a challenge. I first went to a nonprofit that helped minority owned business get started. So we went there first and wd received start up loans.
Then when we wanted to expand and build from scratch a second venue, I was rejected by 3 financial institutions. Everyone told me it was a crazy idea. No one is going to come to Crofton, KY for a wedding. However, I knew they would. I knew the design of our second venue was so unique they would come but convincing a bank to fund us was almost next to impossible.
I have since refinanced with a locally owned bank and it has been so much better. My advice is to keep moving forward, however you need to. You might need to change your path but the destination can still be the same place.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://burdocfarms.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burdocfarms/
• Facebook: Burdoc Farms Weddings & Events
• Linkedin: Sara Shepherd
• Youtube: @burdocfarms116
• Other: TIKTOK @burdoc_farms

Image Credits

The Radiant Raven