We are thrilled to have chatted with co-founder Jenn Garcia-Alonso, {all the way from the Middle East, no less} about her amazing site! A once busy NYC bride herself, Jenn sought a way to handpick her city favorites for her guests. Purple Passport now does just that for brides in cities all over the world! Providing a trendy and personalized approach to planning wedding weekends, honeymoons or entertaining guests, it’s hard to imagine the process without the help of The Purple Passport!
Merci: We like inspiring, creative individuals so needless to say, we already love you! But since we just "met", we want to know more about who you are and what Purple Passport does... do share!
Jenn: The Purple Passport is a web-based collection of chic one-stop-shop guides to experiencing the world's cities in style. My co-founder Emily and I have a combined 10+ years experience living in New York City, and it is a place that we both truly consider to be our home.You can learn all about The Purple Passport site and our team here.
While we love to help all sorts of locals and travelers find the best of New York and other cities, we especially enjoy working with brides (and grooms!) that are looking to make the most of their special wedding weekend and/or have out of town guests to entertain. In fact, we created this handy manual just to help NYC brides use our site - check it out here!
Merci: Sounds awesome! So, what inspired you to develop The Purple Passport?
Jenn: The site was born out of a love of the world's great cities (New York, especially!) and a desire to spread the word. Emily and I have been traveling internationally together for over a decade–with purple-colored passport covers in tow. After amassing a wealth of knowledge about the best of the best in the US and across the globe, we realized there was no resource out there that adequately served travelers like us: hip, worldly, and highly discerning. That's why we created The Purple Passport for all your urban travel needs, from researching a trip start to finish to creating an itinerary shared with your own favorite travel companions.
As I was working with Emily to create the site, I realized how useful
The Purple Passport could be for brides. When I was a busy NYC bride, I was
looking for an elegant and easy resource to allow my out-of-town guests to learn
more about my beloved city. I was also hoping to find a guide that I could
truly personalize so that my guests would understand the city through MY eyes
(i.e., my favorite restaurants, bars, sights, museums, shops, and salons/spas).
The Purple Passport meets these needs in fun, accessible, and stylish ways.
Merci: Wow, what a labor of love {and quite an undertaking to truly explore so many cities}! How did you even begin?
Jenn: We began by writing a travel blog The Diary of The Purple Passport in 2008, and launched the beta version of The Purple Passport in 2010. The growing collection of city guides now includes Beijing, London, Los Angeles, New York, Palm Beach, Paris, and Taipei, with Washington, DC forthcoming. We love exploring and discovering new, wonderful places for our readers all around the world. Finding and sharing that special tapas restaurant, cool cocktail lounge, or cutting-edge boutique keeps us going everyday! We pull inspiration from the vibrant urban mix of cities like New York – we love walking the streets and taking in the best of what’s all around us.
Merci: Where is The Purple Passport based out of? It seems like you guys need to have home bases around the world to cover so many fabulous cities!
Jenn: Our company began in the Co-Founders’ living rooms in New York, NY. Now Emily and I have moved to Durham, North Carolina, and Abu Dhabi, UAE, respectively, and our staff is in New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC. We love that our team is scattered about because it gives us an opportunity to discover and share interesting spots around the US and the world on The Purple Passport.
Merci: How can brides customize The Purple Passport experience for their weddings? I'm assuming it's a great tool for bachelorette parties and honeymoons, too?
One of the wonderful aspects of The Purple Passport is that it’s absolutely free to use. So, we don’t sell products, per se. However, the site can be used to:
- Build personalized "Welcome Packets" via the Passport feature to help out-of-town guests find the best of New York City
- Plan bachelorette parties via the Passport and mapping features
- Select spots for out-of-town guests for additional events (such as a morning-after brunch near the hotel or cocktails near the rehearsal dinner venue) via the full-screen maps
- Organize the perfect honeymoon via our other city guides like Paris, London, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Beijing, or Taipei
Merci: We hear you do all this research of the DL. That's pretty cool... Tell our readers more!
Jenn: Our mission is to offer our users the most honest, up-to-date,
handpicked information for the world's most exciting cities. Every single spot
featured on the site has been visited incognito by a member of our team, and we
never take any compensation for a listing or review; we simply want to find the
best of the best for our readers. We
understand the importance of every detail of a wedding, so we would never
recommend a venue that we haven’t tried, and loved, ourselves.
Merci: I know you guys have a nifty little preview tool for brides... How can they see it?
Jenn: We have a great demo video created specifically for brides that
highlights how they can best make use of the many free resources on our
website. See it at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzmgO_pGstg!
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