Hi, I’m Kailey

I am deeply,
intentionally present
in a life that most
people would find
overwhelming.

Three businesses. Two daughters. A marriage I actively tend to. A faith that anchors everything. And a 9 to 2 work window I protect fiercely because the rest of my day belongs to my people.

How this started

I was a newly engaged girl with a communication degree, a recession, and a high school sweetheart I had been loving for eight years.

It was 2008. Two years into the worst recession of the millennium. I did what I had to do I made something from nothing. I started with wedding invitations. Then I fell in love with silhouettes. The Victorian art form from the 1800s that turns the people you love into something you keep forever. Dapper and Darling was born from that.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it I started documenting my life on Instagram. Not as a strategy. Not as a business plan. Just because I needed somewhere to put it. The girls growing up. The businesses being built. The marriage being tended to. The faith showing up in the quiet moments. The chaos that somehow feels like everything all at once.

Women started showing up. And they kept showing up. Not because my life is perfect. Because it is not. Because it is full and loud and real and I never once pretended otherwise.

I do not sugar coat when things are hard. And I will always share when I find something that makes my life easier. That is just who I am.

Right now my life looks like school pickup and the quick change into studio clothes and driving to rehearsal. It looks like sitting in the parent lounge with my laptop open trying to get work done while watching them through the glass. It looks like conversations with other moms who are new to this performing arts world and finding it wonderful and a little anxiety inducing and completely unknown all at the same time. Those conversations are some of my favorites. And it looks like AJ and I figuring out how to stay connected when life keeps pulling us in twelve directions at once.

It looks like three brands running simultaneously from a 9 to 2 window. It looks like faith woven into decisions that probably don’t make sense on paper but feel completely right.

It looks like a woman who is still becoming. Who is not waiting until things slow down to start living intentionally. Because things are never going to slow down. And this life right now, in the middle of all of it is the one worth noticing.

Your story is still being written. And there is a place for it here.

I built this place because I needed somewhere to put my own story. And because I think you have one just like it. Full and loud and imperfect and worth every single word.

You are not alone in this. I hear you. Your voice is not lost in a void.

A little more about me