get to know low budget bride
meet Kimi
Kimi discovered her interest in event planning while singing for a wedding in 2006. She observed the event planner during the pre-ceremony rehearsal and throughout the rest of the night, thinking "that looks chaotic and fun; I could do that!"
Though Kimi started out by planning small events for her friends in high school, she gained most of her experience in college. In addition to earning her B.A. in Business with concentration in Tourism, Kimi took multiple event planning classes and received a certificate in meeting planning and convention sales from Arizona State University.
Kimi has coordinated a variety of events including marketing activations, weddings, meetings, conferences, live performances, community events (festivals and parades), fundraisers, flash mobs, reunions, bachelorette parties, and surprise parties. She is a former cast member for the Walt Disney Company, where she hosted in-store events and Emceed the Grand Opening for their store in Chandler, AZ in 2011. While also taking on a limited number of wedding clients per year, Kimi spent nearly a decade of her professional career focused on marketing and event planning in the tourism industry, ranging from developing activations to promote destinations all over the globe to coordinating special events for municipalities in Arizona. For the last 6 months, she has worked as the Experiential and Event Lead on the marketing team for a start-up where she has managed events and activations such as Solo in a SOLO at the Super Bowl Experience at Hance Park in February 2023.
Kimi even found a way to tie her love for event planning in with her love for performing. She is a co-founder of Book No Book Productions - a performing arts company with the goal of bringing the arts to the community. She has managed everything from contracting with venues to negotiating with vendors to PR and marketing, in addition to her creative roles for the company.
Outside of her work in events and marketing, Kimi is a Pure Barre instructor and dance/musical choreographer for schools, studios, and theatre companies located in Arizona.
In 2016, Kimi published her first book based on the Low Budget Bride's Planning Guide blog. Her book is available for purchase here or on Amazon. Note: Kimi does not currently receive payment for any print copies of the book, so purchasing the digital copy is greatly appreciated.
Kimi is an Enneagram Type 3 and loves to be involved in a variety of projects. When she is not working, Kimi enjoys performing, traveling, singing karaoke, and spending time with her husband, sons, and goldendoodle, Penny Lane.
“A Low Budget Bride is not just someone getting married on a tight budget. She is anyone living her best life, while using thrifty tips to stretch the value of every penny, without sacrificing the quality of what she wants.””
About Low Budget Bride
Low Budget Bride is a book, blog, and (soon-to-be) podcast full of thrifty tips, including events, travel, family life, and shopping on a budget.
After a long hiatus related to the book (more details below), Kimi is excited to bring new content, expanding from events into other lifestyle areas, and from a blog to a podcast as well.
Low Budget Bride began as a way for Kimi to document her wedding planning process. She thought creating a blog would be a great way to share her experience planning a wedding on a tight budget with other brides who may be in the same situation.
Shortly after starting the blog, Kimi was offered the opportunity to write a book. After a year and a half of writing Low Budget Bride’s Planning Guide: 30 Thrifty Tips for Planning Your Dream Wedding, Kimi was excited to get back to blogging. The agreement with the publisher was that none of the book content would be posted on the blog, so there were very few blog posts in between.
The abbreviated version of a multi-year saga is that Kimi’s publisher has never paid her even a penny of what the book has generated through Amazon sales and stopped responding to her calls/texts/emails 6 months after the book was released, so she has not been able to order more printed copies to sell here through the website.
Unfortunately putting so much of what would have been blog content into the book made it difficult to decide where to go next with the blog. After a long hiatus, Kimi is ready to take the blog in some new directions in hopes of sharing her thrifty tips on a broader range of topics with even more readers.
Additionally, if you or someone you know has experience in publishing/copyright, Kimi is looking for someone to consult on the current situation with her publisher and Amazon. Please email lowbudgetbride@gmail.com if you are able to provide assistance. Thank you!