Hi Chums,
Having finished today’s special occasion hair and make up in the studio, and having cleaned, organised and packed my kit ready for tomorrow’s wedding; I thought I’ve got a spare few minutes to sit down and let you know why I didn’t do my own make up on my wedding morning. Whenever I have brides in the studio and we’re chatting away about all things wedding, invariably they will ask if I’m married. As soon as I say yes, the assumption is always that I did my own wedding make up. They are shocked, nay flabbergasted, when I say actually I didn’t do it myself, my university friend Ham did. And here’s why…
I oscillated back and forth a lot in the weeks before the wedding, on whether or not I was going to do my own face. I had decided (that’s a lie, actually my mum practically insisted) that I should ask Ham to do the make up for my bridal party (which consisted of my mum, Dan’s mum and my two sisters), so I wasn’t ‘working’ on my wedding morning and could have time to relax. She was, of course, right. At one point, I nearly accepted someone else’s bridal booking on our wedding day, thinking I could work the morning and still be home in time to get ready myself (what was I thinking?!) as we didn’t get married until 3pm. I always knew that I wasn’t going to be very good at relaxing on our wedding morning (I was up at 5am and by 5.30am I was putting the flower arrangements in the marquee…). And I actually thought I might need to do my own make up, in order to feel like I was in control of something and to relax me.
But when I sat down at Ham’s make up station, I instantly knew that it was the right decision. Ham is incredibly talented and I trust her implicitly. We had had a trial a few weeks before the wedding (in Carluccio’s in Covent Garden with a bottle of wine and some green olives – read more about that here) so we both knew exactly what to expect. She was able to see things that I couldn’t and knew how to make the very best of my features. She didn’t have the nerves, sense of anticipation or emotion that a bride has on her wedding day.
You know when sometimes you do your make up and it looks ace and you’re like “Brill, I nailed that!” and then the next day, you do your face again, in exactly the same way but it doesn’t look the same? Well that can sometimes happen to me (I am only human after all.). I found that by having another pro do my wedding day make up, I took away the uncertainty of whether or not I would ace it. I was pretty confident I could do a good job of my own face, but it’s hard to predict how you’re going to feel in certain situations if you’ve never experienced them before.
Essentially, having someone else do my make up took away the question of ‘what if?’
My advice is: find a pro, that is skilled and that you like a lot and just book them. Trust me, you won’t regret it!
All photos by the super talented Source Images