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You want every part of your wedding day to be perfect, and you especially want to look perfect on this, one of the most important days of your life. You have a right to want perfection, but the pressure created by that expectation is likely to make the day one of the most stressful days of your life, too. Using a professional hair and makeup stylist is one way to take a major portion of the stress and anxiety out of the day and allow you to concentrate on how happy you are instead.
Why Choose a Professional?
Choosing a professional to do your hair and makeup on your wedding day gives you the chance to look perfect—which is what you deserve to expect on this big day—and a professional can get the job done with a minimum of stress and inconvenience. There’s no doubt that you could do your hair and makeup on your own—or you could have a friend help you—but a professional hair and makeup stylist has skills and experience that you can count on.
From your perspective, your wedding day is a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s also likely a chaotic mix of emotions and tasks that need to be addressed. From the point of view of a professional stylist, your wedding day—and making sure you look great for it—is simply a day on the job. It’s what she does for a living, and she does it all the time. If you choose to do your own hair and makeup, you’re giving yourself another job to do when you’ve already got too many jobs to do, and it’s not just any job—it could be one of the most stress-inducing jobs of the whole day. Turning that job over to a professional removes a source of stress from you, your friends and your family and turns it over to someone who’s made a career of doing it calmly, efficiently and skillfully.
How to Choose a Professional
If you do it correctly, choosing a professional stylist requires several steps, and you shouldn’t neglect any of them. This is an important decision, and you shouldn’t rush through it.
First of all, you need to know what your options are. Ask for recommendations from friends, family, colleagues or anyone else you know who may have hired a professional stylist in the past. When you’re choosing your dress, ask the professionals at the bridal salon for stylist recommendations, and search online for stylists in your area. Look at the stylists’ portfolios, and develop a list of a few of them whose work you like.
After you’ve put together that list, narrow it down by considering exactly what you want from your stylist. Think about whether you’ll want one stylist to do both your hair and your makeup, and decide if you’ll want to go to a salon or have the stylist come to you. Once you’ve made those decisions, focus on stylists who provide the services you want.
When you have a short list, you’ll want to consult a few stylists. Call them to arrange a consultation, and pay attention to how they treat you on the phone; you’re going to want to hire someone who can put you at ease and with whom you feel comfortable. Before you go to your consultation collect some photos of styles you like and take them with you so that you can clearly communicate to the stylist what you want. And while you’re there, take photographs and make notes so that you’ll remember what you liked about the stylist.
After you’ve moved through all these steps, you should be able to choose which stylist is the ideal fit for you, and you’ll be ready to move on to booking.
When to Book Your Hair and Makeup
You should be prepared for the best stylists to be in high demand, and you should make finding a stylist a priority early in the planning stages of your wedding. It’ not uncommon for in-demand stylists to be booked months in advance, and you certainly don’t want to find the perfect stylist and then discover that she’s not available on your wedding day. If you’re ready to book your stylist 6-8 months before your wedding, you’re much less likely to be disappointed.
