Community Highlights: Meet Mikayla Crane of White Carpet Bride

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mikayla Crane

Hi Mikayla, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Oh gosh. It really all started when I was a little girl. I always loved weddings, hair and all things makeup. I tried so many times to get away with wearing makeup out of the house as a little girl and was always caught (probably for the betterment of everyone lol). I started playing with friends’ hair long before the internet told you how to do everything, I remember buying the hair magazines at the grocery store and cutting out the “special occasion:” styles and just “figuring it out”. There were no tutorials. Just a picture and your own ingenuity and creativity to replicate it.
Fast forward one or two years (or like 15 haha), I embarked on doing special occasion hair and makeup as “the real deal”. I have multiple college degrees and trade school degrees (One of which, yes, is cosmetology) and I do believe that a little bit of every one of them has played a positive role in shaping the business knowledge and overall leader, I’ve become.
White Carpet Bride was born as a hungry team of elite artists who are in a never ending pursuit of helping others feel absolutely amazing. Our desire is the perfection of our craft in happy conjuncture with the service of others. There have been SO many challenges along the way,… probably almost everything you could think of, to be honest. But I am a firm believer that competition and negativity can be used for two choices. You can either be defeated and torn down, OR you can use it to fuel kindness, generosity, pursuit of skill and performance, and to serve others. And THIS is when competition makes us better at WHO we are, WHAT we do, and HOW we do it.
So yeah. I’ve seen a LOT in the 20 years I’ve been in the hair and makeup industry. Some bad. And a HECK of a lot of REALLY good things. (I stand firm that they need to do a reality show from a wedding vendor’s perspective lol.) It has been such a wild ride, and the best is yet to come. I’m believing for it!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No way. But if it were a smooth road, it wouldn’t be worth the destination, would it?
We’ve faced just about everything that you can imagine: technology difficulties, adaptation struggles, team growth pains, saturated markets, complaining competitors, studio pains, landlord woes, flaky brides, horrible mothers of the bride,… I literally could write a book (And I still maintain that there should be a wedding VENDOR reality show haha). My entire career has been spent in pursuit of excellence and perfection, wanting the world to understand and view our profession AS an actual profession and not a hobby. It is so disheartening to STILL have brides, wedding planners, bridesmaids, etc. !!SOS!! message on a wedding day because the hair and makeup artist flaked out. (But that’s another soap box for a different Ted Talk leadership podcast lol)

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about White Carpet Bride?
WCB rebranded in 2016 and took the KC industry to a whole new level of seriousness in our pursuit of beauty. We specialize in everything event related, but are not exclusive to that. We partner regularly with boudoir photographers, headshot photographers, brand photographers, magazines, film production crews and models for whatever the project needs!
Our team has been together for quite a few years now (a unicorn in an ever-changing of personnel industry) and we work so incredibly seamlessly together. White Carpet Bride is not an individual. We are a team of insanely talented creatives who work together on ANY project to make sure the client has an incredible experience. From the moment someone inquires about a project or wedding with us, our communication is prompt, professional and full of heart. We want to be the most helpful we can- even if that means we need to refer you to another trusted artist/team! We do genuinely care for people. We know it’s not just a day/shoot/event. This MATTERS to you- and so it matters to us! We want to get to know every client we interact with, because there is also an element of trust that needs to be built. Because when you trust us, the outcome is even better that what you dreamed it could be. 🙂

So, yeah. I’d say I’m most proud of our team. Sure! The Hall of Fame awards, being featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazzar, Marie Claire, countless online publications, doing London and New York fashion weeks, being flown all over for brides’ wedding days are mind.blowingly.awesome. And I’m proud as hell of all of that. But I’m MOST proud of our team. They are the most valuable thing to me. There’s not one of them that doesn’t show up every damn weekend and give it 200% (even in the toughest situations). We work together no matter what. We help other artists on an SOS whim. There’s no individualism mentality. Just a mentality of beautiful work in service.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Oooooo. Being born and raised in KCMO, I have to say I always was a little shy about bragging about it because we truly were just a “flyover” state to the rest of the US. But WOW have we come a long way! I joke so much these days that there are now too many people in KC because it takes me three times as long to get downtown haha.
But in all transparency, KC is truly like no other city. If you are a KC, born and bred individual, you know what I’m talking about. We LOVE our city. We will die being Royals and Chiefs fans no matter how good or badly they perform. We love Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, Eric Stonestreet and the other famous people that are KC born, but we also love our neighbor down the street who makes the BEST pies. The guy in the small storefront who makes insanely good barbecue. The small business friend who will stay up late at night to make a custom shirt for your kid’s sports game the next day.
We are a big city with small town vibes. And I love it.

What do I like least? Well… traffic does suck these days lol

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.whitecarpetbride.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whitecarpetbride.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whitecarpetbride
• LinkedIn: Mikayla Crane
• Other: TikTok: White Carpet Bride