Weddingbee Blog

My wedding-day hair and makeup artist came over today to do a trial run of my wedding day look. I’d talked before about my extensive inspiration—natural, curly, loose side bun or ponytail and fresh, rosy romantic makeup. I was weirdly nervous when Marci from Kyle Lynn came over, since I hadn’t ever had my makeup done and was frankly afraid she’d make me look like Tammy Faye out on the town. So I awkwardly paced around our living room while she set up. She was quiet, which made me think she thought I was weird. As always.

But I showed her my inspiration file, and we got started. She was so great! We nearly nailed the makeup the first time around—we just had to try a couple of shades of lipstick before we found the right one, and tone down the lower lash line’s eyeliner. The hair, too, was about 95% there—the day of, we’ll be doing it a bit looser and less structured, with some more ends showing. But I felt like a total princess—and the bonus is I barely felt like I was wearing any makeup, which is very important for a makeup-phobic chica like me.

First, the before—apologies in advance.

Gah.

And—drum roll—the after!

One caveat: My brows are nuts right now. I’m letting them grow out from a weird too-thin self-plucked shape into something my salon can work with, and will be shaped and waxed prior to the nuptials. Another: We skipped the lip liner so we could try several different shades before landing on the right one, without having to scrub off matching lip liner with every shade change. The liner will be in place the day of.

My No. 1 request was that I didn’t want to look cakey or fake, and I wanted to look like myself, but better. She kept asking what I wanted to fix, and changed the makeup requests on the spot so I could sign off them and she could make her notes on my day-of look. I appreciated that I got to see the final picture rather than getting any “we’ll change that the day of” or, “this will be done better/more complete the day of.”

Another good sign: Mr. Ladyfingers raved about how great I looked, how much he loved my eyes, and how he was really nervous about me getting my makeup done, but that she did a really good job. I’m not the type to do everything he asks me to, or to avoid doing the things he doesn’t like (for example, he hates nail polish—I like it sometimes). So he was nervous since he likes me best fresh out of bed (oh, the people who love you, how blind they are). But he gave the look two thumbs up!

Some tips for your own makeup trial:

• Bring photos—hair fronts and backs, makeup, etc. I tried my best to find makeup examples in my coloring, but threw in a couple of blondes just for an example of the overall feel.
• Don’t be shy. Tell the artist EXACTLY what you want, if there is something exact that you want. They want to know, and this is why we have trials.
• If there’s something you don’t like upon the first look, tell them what you don’t like and what you’d rather have, and if they don’t offer, ask them to change it on the spot. You don’t want to go into the day of nervous that the same mistake will be made, or that you’re not on the same page.
• A non-beauty piece of advice: Tip at the trial. Even if you’ve paid for it on deposit and aren’t paying for the trial the day of, the artist is still doing $XX amount of work that day, so they should be tipped just like you would your hairdresser or manicurist.
• If you have time, try to wear the hair and makeup all day and night long, so you can see how it wears. That way, going into the real deal, you can say, “I loved the look last time but just an hour or so later, I was all shiny—how can we prevent that?” or, “I really liked the lip color at first, but after a couple of hours I kept looking at it and think I’d like to go darker—can we try that?”

What are your biggest hair and makeup requests? If you’ve had your trial, how did it go? Were you nervous to have your face all made up, too? Any advice?