Thursday 4 April 2013

Wedding Day Hair & Make-up - Brideology

Every bride wants to look & feel like a queen on her wedding day. We look for the perfect dress and put a lot of time, effort & money in to our outfits/accessories for the day. It goes without saying that you also want your hair & make-up to be flawless. 

To be perfectly honest, being so laid back I genuinely didn't even think about my hair & make-up to start with. The usual culprits ran through my mind, the dress, the venue, who will we invite etc. But it wasn't until we went to the wedding fayre and I was passed a business card for hair & makeup that I thought to myself can I really afford to budget bride this?

As you know I am all for a bit of D.I.Y. wedding preparation. I did my flower girls hair & attempted to help my bridesmaids with their hair before being shooed away to put my dress on! 


French Plait with Pearls

Despite being a D.I.Y. bride, I am not a make-up artist or a hairdresser. It is one thing putting my neices hair in to a plait, it is completely different styling my hair & doing my make-up well enough to last all day & look good for photos. Which led me on to my next worry. What if I did it wrong? What if I made my self look too bronzed, or not bronzed enough. I would have to live with my wedding pictures forever thinking "Well done Rachel you messed up your eyeliner". Plus there are plenty of things to D.I.Y. in the run up to the wedding. I deserved to have a bit of a pamper morning on my wedding day and have someone else do my hair & make-up. After thoroughly scaring myself at the idea of rubbish wedding pictures and realising just how lovely it would be to have someone do it all for me, I asked around to see if anyone knew of somewhere that was good at doing hair & make-up and was told to try "Brideology". 

Now before I go on to tell you just how amazing they are (because truly I couldn't have asked for better or friendlier service) I am just going to quickly discuss the pro's and con's of having someone else do your hair & make-up. **Also please keep your eyes out for part two coming soon with ideas for hair styles & make-up.**

PROS
  • You don't have to do it!
  • A professional will have better tools & make-up. They know what looks good & can usually match products to your skin tone/eye colour better than you will be able to.
  • These days a lot of services are available for mobile Make Up Artists and/or hairdressers so you don't have to leave your house. You can get ready at home minimising stress.
  • If you have the budget for it, or if your bridesmaids are happy to pay for themselves you can all get pampered together.
  • If you know what you want then of course your stylist can create the look you want. If you aren't sure a professional can help you work it out.
CONS
  • My one & only con is the cost. If you do your make-up yourself or know someone who can do it for you then it will of course be cheaper. But to be honest I think the cost is worth it. Hopefully you will only get married once so treat yourself! 
Just remember, if you D.I.Y. things for your wedding day, shop around and do your research you can & will save a lot of money. The average wedding costs around £13,000. Mine cost about £7,500. You can easily make this kind of saving and when you do you can reward yourself by letting someone pamper you. For me it meant I liked my pictures & felt good about myself all day. Money well spent!!


BRIDEOLOGY - MY THOUGHTS

I looked them up on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brideology/213267495199?fref=ts
I also checked out their webpage: http://www.brideology.co.uk

Brideology are a Swansea based Hair dressing & Make up professional team. They are mobile so can come to your home or go to your venue for the trial and on your wedding day. Their prices can be found on their website (the link is above) but they are extremely friendly & helpful if you want to ring them and ask about their prices and services. 

The first thing I did was check out the pictures/gallery on Facebook & the website. I wanted to see the work they had done for other brides and I was absolutely amazed. All of their clients make-up was flawless, and the hair styles were like something off a red carpet event. I checked out their prices and decided to give them a call. Straight away Andria (Brideology's very lovely & friendly make-up artist) made me want to book. I didn't have a clue about airbrush make up or anything like that and she was very helpful explaining the difference in how it's applied, how long it lasts etc.

Luckily Brideology were available for the date I wanted so I booked and sent my deposit to secure my booking. 

Being the kind of bride I was, I pretty much knew what 'look' I wanted before I even booked. I wanted curled loose hair (but pinned on the sides to keep it out of my face) and gold/natural make-up. Knowing that I wanted my hair down & curled you would think I would realise I needed hair of a certain length, but no, being me I went and cut it all off about 10 months before my wedding "It will grow back" I told everyone. It didn't though!! So as the time for my trial approached I panicked and then jumped on facebook to message Andria for advice on where I could get hair extensions that wouldn't cost me the earth. Andria was so helpful you wouldn't believe. Not only did she tell me where to get the extensions (Sally's in Swansea) but she also told me how much they would cost and advised me to ask the shop assistant to help colour match me. She told me as soon as I left the shop I couldn't go back if the colour was wrong. I'm so glad she gave me this advice as normally I would pick up any old thing and take it back if it wasn't quite right. Armed with £60 I went & picked up my extensions, which the shop assistant helped me pick out. Good job really as my husband picked out four completely different shades of brown & told me all 4 shades were a match!? Men aye?

On the day of my trial I told Brideology exactly what I wanted and I got exactly that!


 Left - Me full of cold no make up and slightly horrified at the idea of a 'before' picture.

Right - Me after Brideolgy curled my hair & extensions, put my extensions in, & applied my airbrush make-up. (Head band/tiara was mine purchased online for £9.00).



After having the airbrush make-up, and my hair done I got very snap happy and was more than happy to let Mum & Brideology take pictures too. Unlike before hand... that was the one & only before picture allowed! 

I hope my phone camera hasn't let down the standard of Brideology's work. It was flawless and better than I could have imagined. Before the trial I was a bit nervous, but within five minutes of their arrival all my nerves had gone. They were so friendly and helpful, we chatted about my hen-do, my mums make-up, my hubby to be and before I knew it my make-up was all done and the trial was over. They explained exactly how they had made the look & wrote everything down so they could re-create it on my wedding day. They asked me more than once if I was satisfied with the look, it was obvious that they genuinely cared if I was happy with their work which just made me love it even more!

On my wedding day, with "Now that's what I call a wedding" playing in the background (courtesy of my big sister) I sat down to have my make-up & hair done again. I wasn't exactly stressed on my wedding day, even if I do say so myself, I think I managed to stay very calm until the time came to get in the car and head to the church. Even so Brideology were once again so friendly that if I had been nervous I think this would have relaxed me. After applying my make-up and fixing my hair they once again checked that I was happy with it, which of course I was!! I looked stunning once I was all done up! ... and modest too (can you look modest?) 

Also, earlier last year, I had won a free make-over for my Mum with Brideology for Mothers Day. Being kind & helpful Brideology let Mum save her make-over until my wedding day. Mum was over the moon with her make-up. It was natural & elegant, exactly as she asked for.

I genuinely can not sing their praises loud enough. My make-up was still on & my hair was still curled at 2am when the bar finally closed. Looking as perfect as when it was first done at 9am but with a slightly drunk bride underneath! In the run up to the wedding every question I had, every message I sent was always answered promptly, professionally and in a friendly manner. I felt comfortable & relaxed around them and felt it was worth every penny when I look at my pictures and see just how glowing and confident I was!

The one thing I would change? I wish my budget could have afforded my bridesmaids hair & make-up too. But with four bridesmaids & a flower girl I just couldn't. All of my girls looked absolutely stunning and helped each other get ready in the morning. But I do wish I could have treated them to a pamper too after experiencing first hand and seeing how much my Mum enjoyed.

My recommendation? If you are a bride getting married in the Swansea/South Wales area I would recommend you contact Brideology. 10/10 for customer service. 10/10 for helpfulness. 10/10 for trial & wedding day hair and make-up. 10/10 for being such lovely friendly people that made me feel relaxed at what could have been a very stressful time.

Final Comments? Don't forget to go to facebook & like Brideology. Also check out their website. Not getting married? That's OK they also help you get ready for any special occasion including school proms! Check out their website to see the full range of services they provide including spray tanning, microloop extensions and more. 

So that was my experience of being a celeb for the day & incase you couldn't tell I loved it! I really do recommend you that you contact Brideology. If you don't live in South Wales then... move? No I'm joking, that could get expensive. But look around & ask your friends, family & other married type people if they can recommend a service to you.

If you enjoy reading my blog please follow this page. There should be a button on the top right saying "Join this Site" click on there to keep up to date with my blog. Also if you want me to answer any of your questions, do a blog on something you are interested in or just want to say hi then you can email me by clicking HERE. Comment below with any queries, comments or thoughts on hair & make-up services you have used. If you used Brideology let me know just how much you loved them too!

As always thanks for reading! xox

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for enumerating the pros and cons. I found this very useful. Wedding makeup artists in the Philippines are great too. They are doing their job out of passion and love.

    ReplyDelete