May 1, 2017

Meet Kitty Wolf of Princesscapades Princess Parties

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kitty Wolf.

Kitty, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born and raised in North Carolina. Growing up, I was actually not into princesses at all! I was more into Ghostbusters, Power Rangers, Star Wars and animals (perhaps because of my name). In 2010 however, I saw an ad looking for performers for princess parties. I thought that would be a hilarious way to make some extra money so I auditioned and made the cut!

I performed as a party princess until 2012 when I got into School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and moved up here to Chicago. I began to miss performing at parties and wanted to get back into it. Unfortunately at the time there were precious few princess party companies in the area and none fit my vision. So I decided the best thing to do was start my own business! I invested in a handful of costumes, made a website (with the help of my IT boyfriend), started up a Facebook page and Princesscapades was born!

Had my first gig on Halloween 2012, entertaining the Trick-or-Treaters in my neighborhood as Cinderella. For the first few months it was just me. I performed as all of the 6 characters I offered. The business grew quickly and I found myself upgrading my costumes, website and even hiring more performers to meet the demand!

Now in 2017 I have grown from just me with 6 characters to a team of 12+ performers and 25+ characters! I’ve learned and grown so much in the last few years. It’s been an incredible journey and I can’t wait to see where Princesscapades and I go from here!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
While making dreams come true comes with lots of fun and laughter, it hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows! The hardest part has been balancing the business and with the rest of my life. When you’re your own boss it’s easy to just work late into the night every night, all weekend or 60 hours a week. There is always something that needs to be done so the temptation to work forever is there. I never thought I’d end up being a workaholic but I suppose that means I am just super committed!

I’ve also had to teach myself how to do everything – from marketing, to accounting, to graphic design, photography, human resources, taxes, licences, customer service and pretty much everything needed to run a business! I went into this with lots of passion and little else. I’ve had to figure things out along the way. While that has been hard, it’s been an incredible experience and I’ve grown so much from it.

Please tell us about Princesscapades Princess Parties.
We specialize in providing enchanting and entertaining characters for children’s events and birthday parties. We have princesses, fairies and sci-fi characters. We’re known for providing top quality entertainment with the professional performers and gorgeous costumes. All of our character performers are trained actors and well versed in their characters. They truly bring each character to life!

What sets us apart from others is that we want each party to be more than just a visit from a character, we want it to be a complete experience! Children will not only get to meet their favorite character, over the course of the party, they will bond and become friends! We’ve carefully crafted and perfected all of our activities to deliver a truly magical experience. Our parties’ center around not just having fun with a princess, fairy or Galactic Knight, they will learn to BE one!

My proudest moments are just watching the look of magic and wonder in kids’ eyes when they are meeting their favorite character. It brings back the joy I had as a child and makes me feel like we put a little more magic in the world.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of my favorite memories from childhood is actually something that inspired me to start this business. I’m pretty sure when I was 4 or 5 I met the actual real Santa Claus. It wasn’t a typical mall Santa visit, it was a special event in a specially and beautifully decorated cottage type venue. It was simply decorated but it had a very cosy, homey, Santa’s workshopy kind of feel.

An adorably quaint Mrs. Claus guided us into a cozy room with a jolly red suited man sitting by a fireplace. Most Santas are big and round, but this one was skinny. For some reason that made me think THIS one was the real one. He was the size of all the “real” men I knew, like my dad and my teachers, so in my tiny child mind, that added more credibility to him. I sat on his lap and he was the nicest person I’d ever met. He looked at me with his twinkling blue eyes (legitimately, they were twinkling. It was magic). I was shy and quiet but he didn’t mind. He hugged me close, spoke quietly with me and gave me his full attention. I felt so special. I left there 100% convinced that Santa was real and that skinny soft spoken man was him.

I’ve met many Santa’s in my lifetime (I’ve even BEEN Santa!) but that one sticks out in my mind as the best. I want to instill that same magic and wonder that I felt all those years ago into all the kids I perform for. I want them to remember meeting their favorite character with the same warm enchantment that I remember my Santa meeting with!

Pricing: