Your Bridal Trial - What can I Expect & How Do I Prepare?

Bridal Trial

WHAT CAN I EXPECT & HOW DO I PREPARE?

So…it’s six months or so before your wedding day and you’ve just had an invitation from me to book in for your bridal trial. It’s a new experience for most brides so often you have questions about what it will be like and how can you best prepare for it?

When’s the best time to have your bridal trial?

I always advise that the ideal time to hold your trial is 3-4 months before your wedding day so you should somewhere around 12-16 weeks ahead of the big day.There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, there are SO many style decisions to be made around your wedding: your dress, the bridesmaids dresses, colour themes, flowers. All of these details can influence how we approach your bridal makeup. So waiting until all of those other details are in place as well as having a clear idea of the overall ‘feel’ of the day is really important so that your makeup styling is a perfect fit.

WHERE WILL MY BRIDAL TRIAL TAKE PLACE?

I hold all trials at my home studio in Great Witley, WR6. It’s a really lovely, bright and calm space with plenty of room for you to bring someone along for a second opinion!

HOW LONG WILL MY BRIDAL TRIAL TAKE?

I allow two hours for a bridal trial. It’s our first meeting so I really don’t want to rush it. We have lots of time to chat about the big day and it’s a time we can really get to know each other. We create your look with you sat in front of a big mirror so you can see every stage of the makeup and how it all comes together. Sometimes a look needs a bit of tweaking to feel ‘right’, sometimes we nail every element straight away. Allowing plenty of time to be sure that you leave feeling flawlessly you is key.

How do you decide on the makeup look?

I see the creation of your bridal look as a collaborative process. I tailor every makeup to suit your own personal style. That’s impossible to do without you being involved in the process.

Inspiration images are useful, of course and anything you can show me helps to piece together your style and taste (see my earlier blog for more ideas on where to find your inspiration images). But equally useful is for you to think about how makeup has made you feel in the past and how you want it to make you feel on the day. Do you want to feel romantic, elegant, polished, bohemian, natural…? Photos of you in makeup that has made you feel beautiful can be really helpful as well as your thoughts on makeup that has not made you feel your best.

We look at photos of your dress to establish the style of the makeup too - a more structured or unfussy gown lends itself to a more clean, polished makeup; a floaty, frothy number can make us head in a softer, more romantic direction. I’m guided by the colours of the bridesmaids dresses, the style and colours of the flowers in choosing your makeup tones. We even consider whether you’re being married in a church, or outside, in the morning or in the evening - the light can have a bearing on the makeup we choose too.

how should i prepare in the run up?

Firstly, get on top of your skincare months before the trial if you can. Good skincare is the first step to great makeup. And makeup looks and lasts better on a well-cared for, nourished, healthy skin. A series of facials is great if the budget allows (I rate the Hydrafacial) but you’ll see incredible results from the right consistent routine. (I have a blog post on bridal prep skincare here)

If you’re planning on having any treatments before the wedding day - brows, lashes, facial waxing, tan - have a test run ready for the trial. They can make a huge difference to the overall look so it’s important for you to get a true idea of everything as it will look on the day itself.

is there anything special i should do on the day of the trial?

You can come makeup free to save cleansing time if you like but also feel free to come wearing your ‘usual’ face of makeup (although avoid waterproof mascara if you can - five minutes of scrubbing with eye makeup remover is not the nicest way to start your trial!).

Wearing a top in a similar colour to your dress really helps to envisage how the makeup will look. And wearing a similar neckline ideally too (but if that’s not feasible, something with your neck and chest exposed is essential for true skin tone foundation matching).

If you’re thinking your hair will be up on the day, wear it up at the trial. And bringing along any accessories you plan to wear so you can see the whole look is really helpful too. We’ll take lots of photos for you to see how it all looks on camera.

HOW Long should i leave the makeup on for?

The trial is as much about checking how the makeup lasts as it is about designing the look. I want us to be sure you don’t have any reactions to products, that everything will sit on your skin comfortably for the whole wedding day and will look as good at the end of the night as it did when you walked down the aisle (with minimal touchups). If any issues come up from the trial then we can make a few changes or tweaks to improve things on the Big Day.

So please try and leave the makeup on for as long as possible. Even if that means your other half getting a sneak peek. Take lots of photos of yourself in different lighting and make a note of anything that doesn’t last as we would expect.

take Me out

Lastly, let’s give the makeup a good test and make sure you plan a lunch or a night out after the trial rather than an evening at home on the sofa! You can’t let that flawless face go to waste!

Finding Your Bridal Style - Preparing for your Bridal Makeup Trial

What should I do to prepare for my Bridal Trial?

Some brides have a very clear makeup style and have a strong vision in their minds of how they see their wedding day makeup and hair from the moment they have found their dream dress. Some stumble across an image somewhere and know immediately that they want that look recreated for their wedding day. Some brides, particularly the more natural kind struggle to articulate their vision and some struggle to find it at all. If you’re a low key girl who wears very little makeup day to day where do you go to search for your bridal makeup inspiration?

‘Well, Pinterest obviously’ you say. Umm, while I love a bit of Pinterest for home and fashion and makeup to an extent, have you searched ‘Bridal makeup’ on Pinterest lately?

Image search from Pinterest

First of all can we just quash the notion that there is a style of makeup called ‘Bridal Makeup’. Bridal makeup is whatever a particular bride wants her makeup to be in order for her to feel her most beautiful. Secondly, these are not natural makeup looks. And as beautifully applied as some of the makeup may well be, there is so much filtering and editing of these images that it doesn’t give you a clear indication of it. Thirdly, glamorous they undoubtedly are, but if you want a modern bridal look these are not going to help you.

Last week, I had a bridal trial with a really beautiful natural bride and she had done her pre-trial homework and taken to Pinterest so that she could have some images to show me. As she handed me her phone she said ‘none of these are really me - they’re all a bit heavy’ at which point I handed her phone back to her and picked up my own. I never want to create a look for a client that doesn’t feel like them - a look that they feel they should have because it is ‘bridal’. I would rather that you come to your trial with no images to show leaving us to work out what you want from talking about your likes and dislikes and looking through some of my past work and other images I may have saved over time .

I rarely look to Pinterest or even studio shoots for inspiration for bridal makeup looks. I follow the work of some of the best ‘celebrity’ makeup artists in the World and for me their behind the scenes and red carpet images are the ones I pin the most. So, my advice is: look to Hollywood for the best in beautiful, understated, expensive looking modern glamour.

Which celebrities are you often told you look like? Which actresses have similar colouring to yours? Who do you see on the red carpet or in interviews and always think ‘they look AMAZING’? Google their names plus ‘red carpet’ and you can find dozens of gorgeous, realistically photographed looks that are perfect for any event - your own wedding included. This particular bride has fair skin, dark hair and amazing full eyebrows - more than a touch of the Lily Collins about her. And so I pulled up her makeup artist Fiona Styles’ Instagram profile to find some of her recent looks. Every one of them she felt was what she was looking for - pared back, lightweight, beautifying modern makeup.

What do actresses need from their red carpet looks? They need it to make them feel beautiful and confident obviously; they need it to last all day and often into the night (ditto your wedding makeup); it needs to photograph beautifully from all angles and under all lighting states (there’s no controlling what direction that paparazzi lens is coming from and your Auntie Jean’s iPhone camera as you walk back down the aisle can be just as unpredictable!) and as well as that it needs to look beautiful and natural in real life too.

Here are just a few examples of the amazing, inspiring looks I have recently saved. Compare them to that Pinterest search. I know hands down which ones I would rather be wearing. And while you’re at it, why not head over to Instagram and follow the incredible artists who created them: Lisa Eldridge, George Eisdell, Hung Vanngo, Pati Dubroff, Fiona Stiles and Alex Babsky. You’ll find square after square of gorgeous, wearable makeup.

Are you looking for natural, modern bridal makeup in Worcester, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, The Cotswolds and beyond? Get in touch here