Wedding Resource: My Kate Parker Wedding

This week we joined amazing forces with My Kate Parker Wedding.  This website is full of wedding eye candy, tips from experts, overall all things weddings!  We asked Kate Parker to give us some insider information as to why a Bride would want to visit My Kate Parker Website wedding.

What is my Kate Parker Wedding and why would you want to check it out and join the myKPW community?

Well, first I guess I should introduce myself.  I am Kate Parker and I am the probably crazy, but creative mind behind my Kate Parker Wedding.  I have been a wedding planner and floral and event designer for the last 7 years and I decided I wanted to help more than the 25-35 clients I see throughout each year.  It’s pretty obvious that after 7 years of planning and designing weddings I understand the thought process of couples getting married, and for the most part I actually teach my clients how to think about weddings because, let’s face it, most of you haven’t been married before and you probably don’t know the first thing about what a photographer should cost or how many people should fit at a 60" round table-8 or 9 with Chivaris, I really don’t suggest 10 unless it’s absolutely necessary :)  I am also a wife of 6 years to my husband Ryan and a mother to Zachary, my adorable 14-month old son who I occasionally blog about.  The other not really cool things about me that end up being really cool for my Kate Parker Wedding is that I have type 1 diabetes, thyroid cancer, and I have a Chihuahua, Lola (actually she’s super cool and VP of operations at KPW.)  Because of three items, we actually donate 5% of each of our vendors yearly fees to the SPCA, JDRF and the Pink Initiative.  Pretty cool right? Okay, on to my Kate Parker Wedding and all its fabulousness….
So you know who Kate Parker is, but what is my Kate Parker Wedding and why should you spend your oh-so valuable time on our site? 

Here’s a quick breakdown of what we’re all about:
– myKPW is completely customizable starting with the two sign up requirements- what state are you getting married in what is your overall wedding budget?
– The four wedding budget brackets for the site are: under 25k, 25-50k, 50-80k and 80k and up
– Once you’re logged into the site, you can always change your state and budget to search and explore other vendors, photos, inspirations, etc.
– We hand-select each and every vendor and limit each category to 4 vendors- simply because I give my clients 3 options to check out and if they don’t like those I send them 3 more…. 9 times out of 10 they go with the fourth vendor… great market research as to how many vendors you should check out!
– Everything on the site is customizable by color, season, style and vendor category.
– Everything on the site has been tagged by color, season, style, and vendor so you can click on any photo, video, and audio clip on the site and see who created the item and all of its descriptions.
– Vendors can upload unlimited photos, audio and video clips so you get the most up-to date content available.  That’s right, I trust my high quality vendors and I want them to showcase their work the way they want to show it, not the way I think you want to see it.
– You can browse, galleries, expert advice articles, featured weddings, and inspiration boards to find your daily wedding inspirations.
– You can blog on the site, sharing your wedding planning experience with your friends and family. You can save any image on the site directly to your blog, any expert advice articles, featured weddings, and inspiration boards as well.
– You can create your own inspiration boards using the photos on the site within your state and budget, giving you ATTAINABLE inspiration.
– Coming soon, and I mean within the next few days, you will have your own budget page.  Simply put in your total budget and myKPW spits out the approximate industry standard breakdown of your vendor categories.  You’ll see it in a pretty graph, actual dollar signs, and as a percentage.  Add in your ACTUAL spending and a second pretty graph appears, showing you if you’re over or under budget, and it will also show you that in dollar signs, and as a percentage. Pretty slick, right?  Totally relating to your personal funds.
– Also coming soon, you will have your to do list.  I don’t think we should tell you what you need to do month to month as you might have 2 months 2 years to plan your wedding.  I simply give you a list of all the things you should be thinking about, in the order of importance that I tell my clients.  You can renumber and rearrange the list with a simple drag and drop of your mouse, add your own items, put your own notes in, check items off when they’re done, even remove any items that might not pertain to your planning experience.
-The myKPW community lets you share your information with the other users within your state and budget.  You can upload a profile pic, put in your style, season and colors of your wedding, put in your wedding date, and start saving your favorite images and blog from time to time.  If you chose to be a part of the community, your profile will be seen next to everyone else’s so you can read each other’s blog, learn about their experiences, comment on photos they’ve saved, posts you like, really helping to connect people with similar planning processes.  We’re all about family at myKPW, so it made perfect sense for us to include our users in such a community as well!
-Finally, in the spirit of the wonderful world of social media, you have the ability to share all of this information with your family, friends, bridal party, etc etc.  You can Facebook, Twitter and Share almost every piece of info and every image on the site, allowing quick communication with the people who need to see what you’re doing.
I think that might give you a good idea of what my Kate Parker Wedding is all about.  We are live in New England, NYC and we open Savannah, Atlanta, D.C. and Chicago Feb. 1st.  CA, TX and a few other markets are scheduled for March 1st as well.  If you’re not getting married in any of our current states, you can still use the site!  Pick any state to sign up and you can look and save and blog and create from the images our fabulous vendors upload every hour, every day.  I hope you enjoy your myKPW experience and thank you so much for letting me share what we’re doing! Happy Happy Planning!  KP

Check it out and come back and let me know what you think.

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