Hair & Makeup Artist - Katie Riddle
- Business: Beauty by Katie
- Location: Louisville, Kentucky KY
- Experience: 7 Years
- Profile: Beauty by Katie
- Website: www.beautybykatie502.com
1. Introduction: What's your story?
Hi! My name is Katie, owner of Beauty by Katie LLC. I have been going makeup for over 7 years now and still love every bit of what I do! I am based out of Louisville but do travel as well. I have a studio in jtown that I use for trials as well as run my other services out of like permanent makeup and spray tans! I love being apart of someone’s wedding day and especially being the one to help them get ready for one of the most important days of their lives. It’s definitely one of the most rewarding parts of the job! I started making a little over 7 years ago when I originally was self taught. I then decided to further my education over the year and have traveled to California for most of my trainings with celebrity makeup artists! After 2020 they started offering online trainings that I continued doing!
2. What's your experience as a bridal hair & makeup artist? How many brides are in there in your portfolio?
My bridal makeup experience has grown so much over the last 7 years. I started off just doing one or two weddings a month and now am typically booked a year in advance. I have roughly done easily well over 300 weddings at this point in my career. I don’t imagine slowing down any time soon either! I truly love what I do and most of the time it doesn’t feel like work!
3. What are the different packages that you offer and which one is your most popular package?
I offer different packages for my brides that I am traveling to. I do offer in studio bridal makeup but I always recommend having me come to you to get ready in one space to avoid traveling around too much on your wedding day to prevent extra unnecessary stress/hassle! The different packages I offer are all listed on my website to show the different options and criteria for each. For example, there is the Petal Package, the Lace Package and the Bouquet Package. The petal package is the smallest package I offer for bride only with an optional plus 1-2 extra people. The Lace package offers the bride plus an extra 3-5 people total and the Bouquet package overs the bride plus 5 or more people. The Bouquet is definitely my most popular package! You get the best value for each makeup session! There are also spray tan add on packages that people can add to their bridal makeup package! Every package includes a day of lip touch up!
4. Do you have a team of assistants or will you be the only artist that day? What will happen if you're sick or have an emergency on the wedding day?
On a typical wedding day I will arrive about 15 to 20 minutes before our desired start time to get set up and make sure we are ready to go when it’s time. I am always the lead artist and do work with other artists that help me for larger parties. I have carefully chosen artists who are extremely reliable, very professional and have a similar style to my style of makeup to keep everything consistent and everyone happy. In cases of an emergency I would reach out to the brides coordinator to let him/her know what has happened and that I will be sending another artist in replacement for me. I will say it would have to be a very extreme emergency for me to miss a wedding! I take all of my weddings very seriously and would never cancel unless It was a big emergency.
5. Do you charge a travel fee? For what distance? What does that cover?
All of my bridal makeup packages are my traveling packages. With that being said I do charge a travel fee outside of 30 miles round-trip from where I live in Louisville. Outside of that it’s a dollar per mile. I typically don’t travel any more than an hour away from where I live. A lot of times it just depends on if I already have other weddings planned that day or not. That would determine on if I would travel further than an hour.
6. Can the bride book a wedding makeup trial appointment and will you also do a trial before the wedding?
For trials I always recommend booking those for about a month before the wedding date or if the bride wanted to coordinate with me to try and do the trial to make use of it for a bridal shower, engagement photos or anything like that, that’s always a really good idea too. The trial is $10 cheaper if you book your wedding first before booking the trial. If you would Like to book a trial before booking your wedding you are completely open to do so! I still cannot hold dates without a contract and deposit so I always recommend brides doing their trial as soon as possible if they plan on doing the trial before booking their wedding so they don’t lose their date if they do decide to book with me! It’s very important to make sure that you do make time to do a trial as this is crucial to getting optimum results for your wedding makeup. The day of the trial we will go over things like your skin type, how things feel by the end of the day and different things that will help me determine what products are going to work best with your face and skin type. I will also give a few little tips and tricks to do to prep your skin better for makeup to do before the day of your wedding.
7. What beauty products do you use and would you be open to the bride using her own make-up?
I use a variety of different brands in my makeup kit. I think each brand has their strengths and weaknesses. I have done my own trial and error with every single product in my kit to see which products from each brands are truly the best. I never add anything to my kit if I haven’t tried it at least several times to make sure that it’s a quality product. If a bride has extremely sensitive skin issues and already knows that the makeup she uses is not going to break her out then I’m totally willing to use her makeup if she wishes. I think it’s a good idea to see if maybe the products I have would still be sensitive or not because most likely as the professional makeup artist I’m going to have the better products so I always recommend to at least trying at the trial to see. When using someone else’s products if it’s not something that I would typically use or recommend I can’t guarantee the durability of the makeup as much when using other peoples products.
8. How can you make the bride's wedding makeup last and look good in photos?
Over the years and many many trainings I have learned so many great techniques to keep in your make up lasting all day long and looking great in the photos. I have gotten lots of feedback from brides saying their make up literally did not move and still look goodbye the time they took it off at night. Using high-quality primers , Moisturizers serum’s and lots of prep will ensure the durability of your makeup as well as setting everything at the end. The mixture of high-quality products from skin care to the actual makeup products mixed with the proper techniques makes for flawless, long lasting bridal makeup.
9. How long will makeup take on the day and how long will you be staying for on the day?
For the average wedding I typically take about 30 to 45 minutes per person and I usually like to have about an hour to an hour and a half for the brides makeup depending on how glam they were wanting at their trial. I also allow roughly 15 to 30 minutes at the end to do any touchups if needed. Once everyone has had their touchup and is ready to go I typically do not stay after that. I do offer small quantities of different touchups like powder and lip touchups to have. Before I leave I always give everyone tips on what to do if they cry or if anything were to happen and how they can fix that.
10. What is your cancellation and/or refund policy?
For bridal makeup I do require a nonrefundable deposit which also covers the day of wedding makeup for the bride. So essentially you pay for your wedding makeup upfront and that works as your deposit. If the bride cancels for any reason the deposit is nonrefundable but if for any reason I have to cancel I will fully refund the deposit.
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