#7 Kat Caraway is Her Majesty Kat

#7 Kat Caraway is Her Majesty Kat

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I was always on the hunt from the beginning to find someone who specializes in Disney princesses and I’m thrilled to present to you Princess Kat (@hermajestykat) of Once Upon a Time Parties, LLC.  She also breaks the mold for me as she’s the first cosplayer outside of Florida that I’m featuring.  Although, I really didn’t have to go anywhere cause she’s such a “Disnerd” she’s always coming to Orlando to Disneyworld for visits, holidays and vacation…or just any reason she can come up with to see the Mouse.

It’s a fun story on how we met.  As you may know, already, I make it a point to really engage into the lives and get to know each person I want to tell you about.  Kat is Amazing!  It started as her randomly telling her followers on her story that she’ll be coming this way for a Disney visit if anyone wants to meet up.  I, of course, immediately responded as I knew I had her in mind for my blog and since she’s from Mobile, Alabama this was my chance to begin the exciting process of bringing Her Majesty to you quicker than waiting on me to find the time to go to her.  We agreed on a time and place (Disney of course…dah) and I would be bringing my wife and daughter, too, as they were more star struck than me to be seeing her after studying her magic in her profile.  We bought her an ice cream from Ghirardelli’s Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop at what used to be called Downtown Disney or Disney’s Market Place which is now Disney Springs, and we walked and talked for a couple of hours.  We learned a lot about each other as she’s not shy and is very well articulated and happy I was interested in what she does.  My family took to her extremely well and she was terrific with them.  I couldn’t have been any more excited to how it went for our first encounter!  Thank you Kat for your genuine affection with my family!

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Makeup Artist, Seamstress, and Wig Styler Extraordinaire

I am shocked and amazed at how much Kat can do relevant to just how young she is.  This adventurous photographic entrepreneur is also a whiz at makeup, wig styling and sewing just to start.  Kat gets a lot of practice, however, as she is the owner of a princess party company and is in charge of upkeeping all the wardrobe, wigs and accessories.  She loves bringing a full dress-up cosplay together and if she can’t buy it or if the product is not good enough upon receiving it, she’ll make it or alter it to the highest standards herself.  She also has no secrets as she’ll share just how she goes through every step of the process.  When I asked her for work-in-progress pics, she quickly provided me with over 50 photos in no time at all.

Wigs by Kat (heat resistant, synthetic)

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Kat the Makeup Artist

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Fairy Godmother Magic as a Seamstress

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Girl Boss

Two thriving businesses at 24; not bad for a first year college drop out, showing her to be wise beyond her years. Schooling was in the way for her big plans and she could always go back, but for now she has everything she needs to excel in whatever she wants to take on. She’s a true entrepreneur and has taken her passions to real heights and created two separate projects that she can share with the world and make a living off of them is an advantage. How much fun do you think it would be to travel, take beautiful pictures and play dress up, too? Kat has found a way!

The two businesses require her as a professional photographer and as a Disney princess for childhood birthday parties and hired events.

Katco Photography

Katco Photography is credited locally, nationally and internationally and has publications in several magazines and organizations such as Exalte’ and Access Magazines. With her love of makeup, fashion, travel, and cosplay I gather everything is visual for her and capturing the perfect image is serious business. She’s really good at it hence the occupation. To see first hand many of the lifestyle photos she’s taken as a professional check out her Instagram page she designated for Katco Photography. Her “bread and butter” is made possible by a Nikon D750 camera with a 1.4/f sigma art series lens. She freely confesses that she’s used her iPhone X for some shots as well.

Once Upon a Time Parties, LLC (AL)

Once Upon a Time Parties, LLC is an adventure that landed in her lap as she took over the company that a friend had started first and ended up giving it over to Kat. They primarily do birthday parties, but also have done community events such as egg hunts and often times charity events and hospital visits. Kat describes being the owner as rewarding but challenging as well. Playing the princess is the easy part, but as the boss making things run smooth by scheduling, cleaning dresses, styling wigs and coordinating and handling all her employees causes her to navigate many obstacles to get it perfect for their clients. She also has a separate Instagram page for this business as well.

So let’s get started with Her Majesty Kat’s Gallery of photos…

Her Majesty Kat Gallery of Photos

Belle from Beauty and the Beast

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Snow White

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Cinderella

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Aurora from Sleeping Beauty

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Ariel from The Little Mermaid

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Rapunzel from Tangled

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Anna from Frozen

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Elsa from Frozen

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Jasmine from Aladdin

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Marry Poppins

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Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Other Disney Cosplays

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Non-Disney Cosplays

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Marilyn Monroe

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Out of Cosplay

This just might be the biggest section of this article because one thing I know for sure about Kat is she is the “busiest bee” I know with the two businesses to keep up with a job as reception for her dad’s accounting practice, a tour guide, a model and her new found hobby of blogging…like me 🙂

She also loves to travel as I’m sure she’s always planning her next adventure, and she’ll go as far as across the globe as she was just married in Austria recently.  I can tell you she comes to Florida a lot, at least three times a year to Orlando, which made this interview possible.

Her two businesses she owns (Katco Photography and Once Upon a Time Parties, LLC) are very much Cosplay related and we already highlighted them above.  She loves everything she does like getting to work with her father and helping him out with his business.  This is what she considers her regular job and since it is an accounting firm she’s getting first hand knowledge how to manage the books for her double enterprise.  One guaranteed quality I found out about Kat if you ever meet her is her wittiness, charm and her amazing “on the spot” articulation with what next to say, which is probably why she makes a great tour guide for The Gulf Coast Ducks of Downtown Mobile, AL.  When we first met her, she shared a lot about the history of her favorite town and lifetime permanent home of Mobile which one tidbit of info I remember is that Mobile was the original home for Mardi Gras before it came to New Orleans.  You can see Kat’s name several times on Trip Adviser’s reviews of The Gulf Coast Ducks tour as many praise the fun time they had on the tour.

If she’s not at work or at home styling wigs or cleaning princess dresses, she’s at a coffee shop where she can spend hours doing other kinds of work with planning, scheduling, posting, advertising or just chillin’.

One thing I’m excited about for her is her new adventure in blogging.  She’s perfect for it with her fashion sense, travel experience and all around lifestyle knowledge.  Sincerely, Kat is the title of her blog and I encourage you to check it out.  We’ll be bouncing off ideas and tips with each other so this relationship won’t end with this article.  In fact, what I love about doing these interviews is that I’ve remained friends with all of my featured cosplayers.

Some other things she shared with me she likes to do outside of cosplay is listen to podcasts, more traveling–like every other week, and have girl nights with her friends and just drink wine, do face masks and watch bad horror movies or psychological thrillers.

But Wait, There’s More

As much as Her Majesty Kat loves the camera, the camera loves her, too.  She is incredibly photogenic and comes across as very glamourous.  Maybe it’s also that she understands good composition and knows how to fill up a frame.  This love affair with being both behind the lens and in front is why she has good modeling experience as well.

Modeling for Premier Wedding Magazine Winter/Spring 2018 Issue

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Her video presence is much the same and exciting, too.  I’ve learned so much about this “Southern Sweetheart” by just watching her stories on her social media pages.  A story is a feature on Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat where you can share pictures and videos onto your Story for users to view and engage with.  Kat is very active and mostly does short videos of her just talking to us about a funny thing that happened to her that day or how she made something or just her venting.  She also promotes and shares her friends’ profile and other pages she likes as well.

A Deeper Look

A question I like asking the most, cause I get a full look into the cosplayer, is ‘What has Cosplay meant to you and why do you love it?’  Here’s what she said:

“Looking back I never would have imagined I’d get into the Cosplay world as much as I have past my princess job, but it’s fun to see what characters I can pull off and the feeling of accomplishment when I work hard to pull a character together and it comes to life when I finish the project; but the best part about cosplaying is meeting the friends I have now and the friends I’ll meet in the future.”

I totally agree with her as the friends I have made and the support this community offers is unmatched.  And there is so much excitement and gratification pulling off a character to share with those you value the most.

I also like to know where my chosen cosplayers are heading by finding out what their dream cosplays are and for Kat she immediately responded with Sailor Moon! “She was my favorite ‘super hero’ growing up and the show was and still is my favorite.  They actually teach really good lessons!  I have the costume ready–just need to work on the wig.  Also another dream cosplay is Charlotte LeBoeuf from Disney’s Princess and the Frog, I can do really good impressions of her and I just think she’d be so fun to do.”

There is so, SO much more to Her Majesty Kat that I can tell you about, but I’m going to leave you with the thrill of getting to know her a bit more yourself by encouraging you to follow her and find out what’s next for her on the horizon.  But before I go, this is the part where I choose my favorite cosplay of hers and then show off our shared Star Wars photoshoot together in the gallery below.  So I have been going back and forth on which one I like the best, and the one that makes me continue to come around to again and again is her Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz.

If you have any questions for or about Kat, feel free to leave a comment below.

Our Shared Photoshoot With Premier Cosplay Photographer BriLan Imagery

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