Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin on Saturday sat down with his wife, Kendra, to discuss marriage and blended families on the city’s sponsored podcast, Magic City Spotlight.

This week’s episode, ‘Love in the Age of Hate’, featured a conversation between the Woodfins and Dr. Thomas and Candice Beavers.

Thomas is the pastor of New Rising Star Baptist Church in Birmingham and married the Woodfins in a private ceremony last October. The Beavers have remained close to the Woodfin family since.

“We don’t have a lot of people that we can confide in,” Kendra said. “But having a wise counsel that’s y’all, it helps us. We definitely feel blessed.”

After discussing their favorite gifts from each other, favorite vacation spots, and Woodfin’s infamous sugar grits, both couples shared the story of how they met.

Prior to the mayor’s proposal last spring, the couple had been dating since the summer of 2021 after meeting at a series of charity events attended by Kendra’s real estate brokerage.

Although she was initially intimidated by Woodfin’s mayoral status, Kendra’s feelings soon began to change. During their first date at the Paper Doll in Birmingham, the couple shared a hug that sealed the deal for both of them, they said on the show.

“I felt like everything when I hugged her changed,” Woodfin said. “The room changed. My energy towards her changed. Everything changed for the better.”

After drinks at Paper Doll, they walked to El Barrio for dinner and shared their first kiss.

As a result of their marriage last fall, Woodfin is now the stepfather to Kendra’s two sons, Aubrey, 16, and Mason, 10.

The couple discussed the difficulties and blessings of blended families this week with the Beavers. Woodfin said that learning had been his biggest challenge.

“My mother remarried at an early age,” he said.

“I don’t remember if I was 9 or 10. But bringing those memories to our own blended family makes me be way more understanding and patient. We have two boys who are smart, handsome, for the most part mannerable. But there’s still an adjustment period for everyone… It just requires the ebb and flow. I think I’m learning, even myself, don’t be rigid.”

He continued that being humble and asking for guidance from others had been a helpful way for him to work through the adjustment period. He thanked Beavers specifically for his advice on gentle parenting and patience.

Kendra said she also received an invaluable piece of advice from Candice Beavers on prioritizing your husband while looking after your kids.

“[You said] make sure you pay attention to your husband too,” Kendra said.

“Because the kids will be gone at 18 in a few years and you’re going to have the rest of your life with your husband. And it stuck with me. So, then I started looking at my relationship and how I deal with the kids and now I look at how it makes them feel and him feel. Just blending and trying to adjust, I’ve started to look at it differently.”

Since their marriage Kendra said she had been trying to sit back and allow Woodfin to lead more.

“I trust him with me and obviously I trust him to lead our family,” she said. “So, allowing him to do that even though he’s going through learning is interesting to me…It’s not perfect. It won’t always be perfect but if you stick in there that’s what makes it beautiful.”

The Woodfins also unpacked some of the stresses and harsh judgements that come with a life in the public eye but said that they were largely grateful to try and provide a healthy relationship model for people in the city.

“If it works here, then we don’t mind being examples for everybody else to see,” Woodfin said.

“Because we’re rooting for everybody in their relationship. Birmingham needs people to have healthy relationships. We want families to be together. We want blended families to be healthy. We want non-blended families to be healthy. We want husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, people dating, we want everybody to win. Birmingham needs that. Because if that much love is out here, the whole city is better.”