Kirsten Palladino

Kirsten Ott Palladino is the editor in chief and founder of EquallyWed.com, the nation’s premier online same-sex wedding magazine.

She also is one of the founders and the editor in chief of Atlanta Gay Weddings, an annual printed guide for gay and lesbian couples in Atlanta, Ga.

In 2012, Palladino launched National Marriage Equality Day, which caught the attention of national media such as NPR, ABC News and The Los Angeles Times, as well as celebrities, including Lance Bass and Charlize Theron.

An award-winning journalist and editor, Palladino has enjoyed having her work appear in esteemed magazines, newspapers and websites. For more than 10 years, she’s covered gay rights, weddings, art, travel, restaurants, fashion, beauty, celebrities, profiles and music. She’s been a recurrent guest on CNN discussing marriage equality and same-sex weddings.

After facing discrimination when planning their own nuptials and finding a major lack of same-sex couples in mainstream bridal and wedding magazines, Kirsten and her wife, Maria Palladino, launched EquallyWed.com, which provides the LGBT community with wedding-planning inspiration, photo galleries, real weddings, a marketplace of gay-friendly wedding vendors across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, marriage-equality news, and vetted honeymoon destinations—all on an editorially based multimedia platform.

The couple has been the subject of a lengthy feature in The New York Times, as well as in multiple articles across the country, for their pioneering work in raising the level of equality in the way gay and lesbian weddings are viewed in this country.

During the Equally Wed planning phase, Kirsten and Maria Palladino were the first lesbians to have their wedding featured in a national consumer bridal magazine in Get Married Magazine’s debut fall 2009 issue.

Kirsten’s expertise has been sought out by The New York Times, CNN, CNN International, Politico.com, NPR, Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.