Transcript
Speaker: Hey, it's me, hi. It's Lauren Garford here with episode three of Behind the Chair. Did that sound really American, that intro? Anyways, moving on. This week I wanted to talk about brides. It's all about the brides at the minute because even though it is the end of wedding season technically, like I'm coming towards the end of the super, super busy season where I'm doing two or three weddings a week,
Speaker: Now it's coming into the season where I'm talking to brides all the time that are wanting to book in with me for the next couple of years. So inquiries from brides are coming in thick and fast. And basically what I'm finding is I'm finding that I'm answering the same questions over and over again. So I just thought it would be really, really helpful.
Speaker: for brides and by the way if you're listening to this and you know someone who's getting married please send this to them because i feel like this will be really really helpful for them and just yeah i mean it's just gonna be a fun chat all about bridal hair and makeup and some tips that i think you should know like there's so much to think about when you're getting married
Speaker: Like where do you even start with hair and makeup? And if you're a complete novice when it comes to makeup and hair, then it can feel really, really overwhelming. I think that's one of the biggest things that I get, that I hear, sorry, is people feel overwhelmed and they worry about certain things.
Speaker: and that's what i'm going to go over today so i'm going to talk about some key points and some key questions that i guessed get guessed get asked all of the time so yeah let's get straight into it guys you're engaged congratulations you're about to get married
Speaker: it's very exciting and it's also a little bit a lot right it's quite overwhelming so let's talk all about bridal hair and makeup and before you book anyone let's talk about what you should do okay so these are the three
Speaker: things that I think you have to do before you start your research so I'm talking before you even start googling or looking up hair and makeup artists in your area so I think the first thing that you should sit down and have a real think about even get a pen and paper out I'm a pen and paper girl myself I'm a 90s girl so I'm sorry but I love a pen and paper I love my old school diary I would recommend getting a pen out and writing down what your style is so for example
Speaker: my personal style is glam sporty so I like to be comfortable but I also love glam I love a bit of sparkle and if I'm going on a night out which never happens but if I do I kind of always have to have some sparkle in there and I find it really hard to go from like
Speaker: like casual to um like just a little bit casual i'm either like super casual like look like a homeless person or i'm like super super glam so i find that quite hard being in the middle and so i love a bit of glam so what do you like are you casual are you the sort of person that
Speaker: like would never be seen dead in a sparkle? Or are you quite classic? Are you a rock chick? What is your style? Think about that and just write that down. The next thing I think about, this is the second thing I'd write down, is what makes you feel most confident. So what I mean by that is, for example, what makes me feel really confident is makeup.
Speaker: So wearing makeup makes me feel confident. It makes me feel ready for the day. Some people don't really like wearing so much makeup. They prefer less. And to be honest, I'm quite simple with what I wear. I have to wear mascara, obviously do my brows.
Speaker: But it's very natural. I don't overdraw them. Maybe like a little eyeliner, either little smudge eyeliner. And then I have to have a little bit of coverage. So my favourite at the minute is sea cream and then my blusher and my lip heat. Because I also do not feel ready if I don't really have a makeup on.
Speaker: If I'm even going to work at 7am, I've pretty much all the time got something on my face, even if it's quite quick and simple. So what makes you feel most confident? Some people feel more confident in like, I don't know.
Speaker: high heels and a black trench coat. I don't know why a black trench coat just came into my head but whatever it is that makes you feel most confident. I'm basically just trying to help you get a sort of idea of what your style is and this is really important. I'm going to explain why. After you've thought about those two things, what your style is and what makes you feel most confident, the next thing I want you to think about
Speaker: is get some clarity on what it is you're looking for in a hair and makeup artist. So are you looking for a hair and makeup artist that brings out the glam side of you? Or are you looking for a hair and makeup artist that brings out more of the natural sort of paired back look that you want to go for? So just really have a think about that because this is so important. The reason why it's important is because each hair or makeup artist is so unique in what they do.
Speaker: their artistic style is so so unique so before you go ahead and research it's really good to have that vision in your mind of what you're after because then when you do your research you'll probably find a makeup artist that's going to match your style and then that's how you find it you know and then
Speaker: maybe the this is quite important but i wouldn't say that it's um it's got nothing to do with the sort of artistic creative side of things but i do think you should um think about your budget so write down what your max budget is and write down your minimum budget i would highly recommend doing the minimum as well because you do not want to be budgeted on something like this you get what you pay for
Speaker: And if you budget on it, I personally would question going too low. It's a luxury service and this might be a bit of a controversial thing to say, but you're paying for a luxury service. You're not paying for something that you can buy at a cheap store.
Speaker: I don't know why I'm American and this podcast store a cheap shop. You know, it's not a cheap thing to have done. So just bear that in mind as well. And then moving on to the most popular questions that I get asked by brides that I'm answering constantly.
Speaker: is first of all i think a lot of brides are really scared about what a makeup artist is going to do to them so i think some people have either had some like horrific experiences where they come out looking completely different like the other day i had some
Speaker: bridesmaids that were chatting amongst themselves about a wedding that they'd been to a few weeks ago and now I don't want to you know bash anyone and I don't know who they are but they were just chatting about their experience and she did show us a photo and I have to say my jaw did hit the floor a little bit just because the makeup wasn't flattering so let me try and explain what it looked like it was it was like some
Speaker: Ginger eyebrows this lady wasn't ginger so
Speaker: I don't know why they were ginger. And the eyebrows were like going up way past where her natural brow was. You could even see this. It was really clear on the photograph even how far past the eyebrow had gone. It was just a mess, the eyebrow. It was the first thing that I looked at. I couldn't take my eyes off the strange eyebrows. And then it was sort of like a really unflattering lip colour. And honestly, it made her look 20 years older.
Speaker: So I I understand that makeup can be quite scary in terms of like gosh like what are they gonna make me look like? But a good makeup artist if you find someone that you like They are gonna work with you and collaborate with you so I think a lot of the time I have to sort of chat to my brides and say to them like look this is a collaboration and
Speaker: like sort of think of me as a pal in terms of be honest with me you know i want you to love your makeup so don't be scared to be honest right it's it's a very personal service getting your makeup done and your hair done and it can really really help with your confidence or can really hinder your confidence so your hair and makeup artist will care just as much as you about how much you're going to love it so we we want you to love it
Speaker: So work with us and that'll be the best. You'll get the best outcome basically. This next question is a really popular one. So I always get asked when you should do a trial. So your hair and makeup preview. I'm going to try and change the word from trial to preview.
Speaker: I can talk about that another time, but I'm just gonna call it a preview for now. A practice run, a dress rehearsal, okay? Let's call it a dress rehearsal, I quite like that, right? Theatrical vibe. I do them about six to eight weeks before your wedding date. The reason for this, I'm gonna explain why.
Speaker: first of all by this time so six to eight weeks before your wedding you're gonna know exactly what dress you're gonna be wearing hopefully i have had a bride before and she didn't have her dress like two weeks before her wedding like i honestly i've never been so shocked i was trying not to be shocked like when she told me i was like oh oh oh yeah that's uh
Speaker: That'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, great. Good luck with that. I was really shocked. But you know, she looked amazing, so she totally pulled it off. So yes, so by this point, you should know what you're wearing and this will help determine how your hair is going to be. That is one of the most important things and how everything is going to look and fit together.
Speaker: There's also another thing about the dress. Usually by then you've decided whether or not you want a veil. This is important obviously because of the hair, how you're going to wear your hair. You can wear a veil by the way if you're going to have your hair down. People ask that quite a lot. There's a few tricks you can do to the hair to make sure the veil stays in. You braid like a small section of the hair at the back of the head.
Speaker: and then the veil goes in that and it like gives it purchase to hold so that's one little trick but then the rest of the hair is down and the other reason that you have the trial closer to the wedding day is because it also depends on your hair length so for example if you are going to have your hair down and you're growing your hair which a lot of people do they grow their hair for their wedding day then i would highly recommend doing it from six to eight weeks before your wedding you're going to know by this point how long your hair is going to be on your wedding day so you're going to have
Speaker: clearer vision of how you're gonna look basically. And the next reason is because fashions change. From season to season, fashions change. What is really trendy now might not be trendy in January, if you're getting married in January. You know, also the actual weather. You know, not just the weather in seasons, I mean fashion seasons. And yeah.
Speaker: That's just something to consider. I'm really going back to basics now, but when you're booking your hair and makeup artist or actually when you're booking any wedding vendor, not just your hair and makeup, please note that paying a deposit is completely 100 % a good thing. This basically enables the vendor to be really organized and you know that the vendor is organized and a professional. If you're booking someone and they don't take a deposit,
Speaker: It is quite unprofessional and I don't know any other professional in this wedding industry that doesn't take a deposit. So just bear that in mind. You should be paying deposits and they can be anything to be honest from about 5 % of the overall cost up to 50%.
Speaker: I don't really know of anyone who takes 100 % of the fee up front. I've never heard of that so just bear that in mind as well. So when you're looking to book your hair and makeup artist you're gonna want to be thinking about booking them depending on who it is. Anything from 12 to 24 months in advance. Now 24 months that's kind of pushing it a bit. Some makeup artists do book up
Speaker: really far in advance it depends you know how big they are and if they're celebrity makeup artists or you know whatever it's very it varies between artists but also a lot of artists they don't book up further than two years in advance if that makes sense so say for example we're in 2023 now I wouldn't take a booking for 2026 there's a few reasons for that but basically I wouldn't
Speaker: I would take a book in for 2026 in probably the end of next year. That would be the closest I would do. So just bear that in mind as well. It's good to know that you don't have to necessarily rush into it if you're really, really organised and your wedding's in two years or three years.
Speaker: You don't necessarily have to panic about all of your wedding vendors but if you do have your eye on a wedding vendor my advice would be to let them know your wedding date and if they're not taking the booking yet then I'd say keep in touch with them and then I'm sure they're going to let you know when their diary is open for that date. You're looking at wanting to book a vendor about six to twelve months minimum
Speaker: before your wedding especially if it's between the months of summer so spring summer are the most popular months especially on a weekend if you are last -minute on a on a Saturday booking you're very it's very unlikely for you to get that book and especially if it's someone you really really want and yeah that's something again to keep in mind another question I get asked a lot is about services and how long they take so for example
Speaker: each service for a bridesmaid I usually take around 45 minutes per bridesmaid for hair or makeup and then for the bride I usually take anything between two and three hours for the bride depends on the style depends on what the bride wants and it depends on what we've agreed upon in the initial agreement sort of thing so it does vary slightly sometimes things do take longer if you're the bride and it depends on the style so that is a really good thing
Speaker: to keep in mind when you're doing your research with hair and makeup. A lot of people don't see how long some of these complicated hair or makeup styles can take. For one hair and makeup for a bride and four hair and makeup for bridesmaids it's gonna take about eight hours. I know it sounds a long time but you'd be surprised how the time on a wedding morning speeds past and then all of a sudden you're there, you're at your ceremony and
Speaker: Yeah, it goes really quick. Speaking of wedding mornings, something that I never hear anyone talking about is how long a hair and makeup artist is expected to stay. Some people will just do the service and once you're done, before you're dressed, before you've got your veil on and things like that, they run. So I don't mean that in a crazy way, I just mean they leave straight away. I stay until you leave. So it means that anything happens between the time that you've had your hair and makeup finished
Speaker: you getting dressed I can help you and honestly this I think is hugely valuable I think it is so so valuable and I know it's important to people because the amount of times that things have happened not even just with the bride but with the bridesmaids there's been a disaster a last -minute disaster I can't even tell you how many random things have happened at weddings I've had a bride where she put her dress on she was all ready to go just had her dress on and as she put it on she realized that the dress
Speaker: Megha, what's the name? The seamstress, that's what they're called, had forgotten to finish off part of the dress on the side so there was like a flap of material. It was kind of like a lace so it wasn't like super obvious but obviously you don't want that, do you? As a bride you've
Speaker: paid this money for a dress to be fitted you don't want this random flap of material so off I go into my bridal kit and I've got my sewing kit with me bring that out and sew up my dress it's a good thing that I know how to sew I mean it wasn't probably as good as like a professional seamstress could do but it did the job and I'm pretty sure I dress held so
Speaker: you know that was to me a job well done so really really random things like that can happen more than likely it'll be something like the lipstick one's topping up or the bride just wants like reassurance or the bride actually a lot of the time asks me to help them get dressed get zipped up or like just calm them down a bit i've been told that i'm a common influence i don't know why because in my mind i'm not that calm but i think i come across really calm and so
Speaker: So yeah, it can be a really nice moment though between myself and the bride, it's quite a nice time so I really enjoy it, it's really sweet and I get to take some little pics and yeah, it's really lovely. I think I've covered as much as I can for now and you know what, I'll probably update this in a few months because I'll probably be like right, I need to answer all these questions because people
Speaker: Need to know and I need to get the knowledge out there. So yeah, I hope you enjoy that. I hope it was useful Please pass this on if you know someone that's getting married. I think it's gonna be really really helpful for them And yeah, have a fabulous day. Thank you for listening to behind the chair with me Lauren got it. Bye
