How Do I Look?

When it comes to hair and make-up on wedding day, in my humble opinion, a bride should look like herself, only enhanced in a way that no one can quite put a finger on. She should look “special” but not so completely altered that the groom does a double take, not because she’s dazzling but because he didn’t recognize her at first.

I would like to assure every bride that she is already lovely. The glow of happiness shining from her is more beautiful than any amount of make-up or a special hair-do can ever make her. This isn’t to say a bride shouldn’t make herself as attractive as she possibly can. This is a very special once-in-a-lifetime day! But she shouldn’t feel under pressure to change herself into something she’s not just because it’s her wedding day. Her guests and, especially, her groom want to see her as they know and love her, not as a glammed-up caricature of herself.

There is also comfort to be considered. A wedding day is a looooong day. A bride (and her mother) would be foolish to make herself up in a way so out of the ordinary that it has the potential to make her uncomfortable. She’s already wearing a rather unusual and often very heavy dress! Other sources of discomfort could be anything from a hair-do held together by hairpins that every second threaten to fall out to those that have secured her hair so tightly to her scalp that she has a headache within half an hour. It could be false eyelashes or fingernails that she’s not used to. Even make-up can be irritating if she’s not used to wearing it.

Now, having said all that, we started planning hair and make-up well in advance. My daughter made a hair appointment long before the wedding solely for the purpose of trying out some ideas. She had been working for a lady who runs a hair salon and exchanged labor for a hair-do. Meanwhile, I arranged to have a makeover party with my daughter and the mother-of-the-groom at the home of a mutual friend of ours who sold Mary Kay cosmetics. It was loads of fun! We were able to play with a couple of different looks and find the color palette that best suited us. I learned a lot, supported a friend and, the big plus here, I had a couple of months to use the products before the wedding so that I was completely comfortable with them by the time The Day arrived.

I also purchased some inexpensive press-on fingernails from Walgreen’s to test-drive. I am a life-long nail-biter and have always hated how my hands look. For just one day, and knowing there would be lots of pictures, I wanted my hands to look nice, but I knew that having nails would be a major adjustment. I wore them over a weekend and struggled to do the simplest things! In light of this discovery, I figured that if I put the nails on as the last thing I did before walking to my seat on The Day, I could manage. No one would be asking me to type an email or dial a phone during the wedding!

My daughter has always had beautiful nails and she had been grooming them and taking special care of them in the days before the wedding but, despite all her care, either through stress or accidents, every single one of them tore off before The Day arrived! Though distressed about the loss of her nails, she was also able to find pretty nails at the drug store. Looking back, and to save stress, she says that she should have used self-adhesive nails rather than the kind that needed to be glued on. Additionally, even the plainest press-on nails could be accented using press-on gems like those she used on the bridesmaids’ gift books.

Finishing touches included selecting jewelry to wear on The Day. My daughter and I looked into my own jewelry box first to see if there were any “heirloom” pieces that she might want to wear. We also considered using jewelry as accent pieces in her hair. We tried jewelry on all the bridesmaids as well to see what, if anything, might work well. We tried out all of these jewelry ideas well before wedding day.

I’d like to leave this entry with two thoughts:

One: a bride, simply by virtue of her happiness, is beautiful. She should not feel she has to spend a fortune to transform herself into someone else. There will always be something that isn’t “perfect” about her appearance but a bride would be unwise to let that spoil her day.

Two: we didn't spend a lot on our hair, make-up, and nails. Once again, dear friends who specialized in these things helped us out. A bride does not necessarily need to have anything “professionally” done. Ask around. You may be surprised to find that your friends are fully capable of giving you the wedding day makeover you want. In the end we were all very happy with how we looked. And -- very important-- we were comfortable!