Weddingbee
One thing about planning a wedding in a place that you are not currently in is that you have to travel a lot. I just counted, and between the beginning of May and the wedding in September, we will have traveled to the UP eight times. EIGHT! Multiply that by 5 hours each way, and you have 80 hours of driving. That is a lot of hours spent in the car my friends, and that doesn’t even include trips to other places during that time period. No bueno.
I shouldn’t complain. I’ll admit, I’m not typically the person driving. The boy usually drives and I find things to do to occupy the time. Things like picking potential songs for the ceremony. Things like entering our entire guest list into our table planning software. Things like figuring out who all needs to be at our rehearsal dinner. Oh, and things like choosing our wedding party. Yep, that was done in the car too!
Read more…
Well, that or Miss Vampire. Yes, that’s right. You’ll see.
My regular hairstylist called me about five weeks before the wedding to let me know that she had a family emergency and would not be able to do my hair for the wedding. I was really sad, because she is super talented and knows me so well (I wouldn’t even need to bring inspiration pictures) but I completely understood her situation.
After briefly panicking, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I was able to book appointments for myself and the whole bridal party at a salon in Ann Arbor with very short notice.
I did my boudoir shoot right before my hair trial, and liked my hair down so much that I almost considered to go with it that way for the wedding. Up until this point I had wanted to put it up, mostly for the sake of convenience. Mr. Taffy suggested that I do the trial up, then decide between the two. I brought inspiration with me, and it seemed like it was going pretty well, but then the stylist decided to take a turn and it all went downhill from there. I found the hair to look very matronly; not my style at all. 
But it gets worse…
Read more…
I’ve explained to you my philosophy of makeup: Success in makeup is about being happy with how you look, not in following makeup rules. Get professional advice when necessary. Take some time to adjust to a new style before returning to your comfort zone.
What does this mean for a DIY makeup bride?
I would tell a DIY makeup bride to give herself a few weeks to try out different styles before the wedding. Set aside time to do your makeup and snap some pics of yourself (or have your fiance take some for you). Write down what products you used and how you applied them. You’d be surprised how quickly you can forget what color eyeshadow you used where. You’ll probably want to find products with staying power, so ask around for recommendations and take note of how long they last during your trials.
OK, so you’ve talked to the friendly makeup counter gal or guy and picked out some foundation and maybe some other products, too. You’ve got time to play around and you’re ready with a pen, piece of paper and a camera.
If you have dry skin, or even if you have slightly oily skin, I definitely recommend applying a thin layer of moisturizer before you put on your foundation to help it go on more smoothly and to give a more even layer of coverage. You can even mix your foundation with the moisturizer if you find it helps to do it that way. I use the back of my hand or, when I get down near the end of a bottle of foundation, I squirt some moisturizer in and shake it up to make it last longer. I recommend Clinique’s Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion, but you can use whatever you like.
Read more…
We’ve all heard the “do”s and “don’t”s of makeup. These rules — handed down authoritatively from beauty mavens at the mall, the glamour column in your favorite magazine or your mother when you were a teen — can guide a girl’s makeup application for years.
Makeup habits are hard to break because breaking them changes the way you look… and that can be uncomfortable for a lot of people.
Think about it for a second. How many times have you HATED your haircut right after your stylist finished? And how many times did you grow to love it after a few days or a few weeks?
1 week post-hair cut, feeling uncertain about my new ’do
Hi, my name is Miss French Bulldog, I have HORRIBLE skin and I cannot believe I am about to post this on the internet for the world to see. I must really love you readers! (Aww)
This past Sunday I drove down to San Diego for my makeup trial with Ashley Lowe of AC Makeup. Ashley was recommended to me by Mr Frenchie’s best man’s wife, Lindsay (did you get all that?). Lindsay didn’t use Ashley for her wedding, but she had heard wonderful things about her from her friends on Bridal Insider. Plus, Lindsay wanted to keep me far away from her makeup artist because, well, that was a nightmare. Okay, enough stalling, here is everyday Miss French Bulldog.
Lemme just point out the lovely zit on the corner of my mouth and I’ll stop with the self deprecation. See it? Okay, I’m done.
One of the reasons Ashley is to highly recommended is because she uses an airbrush.
Read more…
Ever since I’ve become a bee, I’ve been in love with anything bee related, and it simply added to my already existing love of honey. I eat honey with practically anything… almost. So When I received an email with The Buzz about Naked Honey… I was excited!
Image courtesy of M.A.C Cosmetics
This week, I’ve taken on a very serious mission – one that few at work would guess I’m equipped to handle.
By day, I’m a mild mannered reporter, but after work I slip into the nearest phone booth and transform into …
MAKE-UP LADY!
Wielding my magic brushes and two large cases of makeup, I transform a cast of ordinary teenagers into a slew of crapshooters and hotbox dancers for the musical Guys and Dolls.
This poor high schooler looks scared because I just finished yelling “Not enough blush!” and attacking her face with my brush.
I have a confession to make. I went into my hair and makeup trials with only the vaguest idea of what I wanted the end result to look like.
I put off these very important decisions until just last week and found myself scrambling the night before my appointment to find appropriate inspiration photos. The problem is, there really wasn’t any combination of photos to illustrate exactly what I wanted… mainly because really I didn’t know what I wanted. (Oh, how I envy the bees who’ve known exactly what they wanted when it came to their wedding day looks!)
As far as my hair, I was only sure that I wanted a natural looking (i.e. not lacquered to my scalp) updo. These are the photos that I took to Mayerly, my super-patient stylist at the Biltmore Hotel Spa.
Read more…
So, here I am, 3 weeks (O.M.G.) from the big day, and I’m seriously unhappy with my makeup trials so far.
A refresher:
Trial # 1
Dislikes: uneven eyeshadow, racoon eyeliner.
Read more…
On Monday, before heading back to Santa Fe, I had my makeup trial with Katelyn Simkins, one of Denver’s favorite makeup artists. It took almost two hours and we still didn’t quite achieve the look I like, but we got darn close. My inspiration was heavily based on the Vogue cover I blogged about here. We were aiming for dewy skin, a pewter, smudgy eye (although, not too smoky), rosy cheeks, and a glossy, stained lip. Before I show you the results, though, you deserve a makeup less picture (even though I wear a little bit of natural-looking makeup on a daily basis).
Me (left) hiking with my two MOHs
Now, onto the trial. Here’s the first iteration:
Small.jpg.168x130)
.jpg.168x130)
