J&A Wedding: Hair & Makeup

Ok, onward with J&A's wedding! Yesterday was the couple's rehearsal, today is all about Jackie. Before she could walk down the aisle, we spent the morning in hair and makeup.

Jackie did a little research on the Newport, RI area and consulted a few friends who went to school close by before selecting Curl up & Dye for our updos. I was able to go with Jackie to her trial run a few months ago and instantly fell in love with the stylist we'd all be using, Marissa. 

As I mentioned in a previous post (here), I decided to let my natural curls shine through for this wedding. Well, that's a lie. They still curled my entire head of hair. But seeing as I have naturally curly hair, my pony tail is never sleek. So an updo with texture looks more "me" as my mom would say.

Yes, I have red highlights at the ends of my hair. Word of advice, do not get highlights when you're a brunette....wayyy to much work to maintain. I've been trying to get rid of it for over a year now. You can say I told you so Mom. 

 Christina had the most hair out of all of us BY FAR. And I'm pretty sure her updo was done the fastest. Marissa was amazing!

Meghan had the goldilocks look going once she was all curled! 

 Meg's finished product. Beautiful!

So, there's a story with my mom. We came down to Newport for her hair trial about two months prior to the wedding and she had just had her hair trimmed. Lo and behold, it was too short for an updo. She promised Marissa she would not trim it again before the wedding, and she didn't, and it drove her crazy! ha. But I am so happy she didn't, because she looked so beautiful.

She has SUPER curly hair and wanted to wear her hair up for the wedding to try to beat the August humidity New England enjoys so much. No lie, Marissa had her hair pinned up in probably 20 minutes. And it was perfect! How beautiful do her curls look?!

Somehow I missed hair photos of the Mother of the Groom and bridesmaid Ashley but they both looked gorgeous.

And last but not least, the Bride! When we came for Jackie's trial, she was thinking something much sleeker, small bump to the back, simple bun. Don't get me wrong, it looked beautiful. But boy am I glad she had a change of heart and decided to go with something a bit more airy and relaxed looking. These pictures really don't do it justice, the lightings off. But I promise, there will be more later this week.

 Once our hair was done, we headed back to the hotel for makeup. Look at that makeup spread?! I die. 

Our makeup artist for the day also happens to be a really good friend of mine. And she is SO talented. I love watching her do makeup. I let her put way more eye makeup on me than I would normally wear on a work day but it's totally worth it. It translates so well in photos. And of course, she had the fake eyelashes ready for all of us!

Jackie still waiting for the makeup chair, Christina all ready to go! Don't her eyes look amazing?!

 Somebody got a card delivered during the pre-wedding prep. (I know you're wondering, I was too so I stole a glance at the tag, her gorgeous tunic dress is from J.Crew. You're welcome.)

Just a little pre-wedding champagne while getting prettied up! 

And we are off to the main event! Wahoo! 

Stay tuned...

Wedding Wednesday: Hair & Make-up

This is it! Less than one week until Jackie's wedding! I can't believe it's already here. I also can't believe this lovely couple has been married 3 months, this couple 2 months, and this couple 1 month!

Thank you friends for spreading out your weddings so perfectly. :)

Back in June, when I was in Meg & Dan's wedding, I printed out a bunch of up-do photos for inspiration. Specifically, I showed the hair dresser these two photos and told her to do whatever she wanted.

I loved the front - side part & height - on Kate Middleton but loved the back of the picture on the right.

How'd she do?

I had her fix that piece of hair sticking out in the bottom photo but otherwise, I LOVED this updo. It did not move at all (I'm not kidding...I slept in it and left it for the next day brunch since it looked perfect ha!). And I loved the little bit of height in the front.

I had also had my make-up done by these photos, can you tell? :)

So for this coming weekend, I think I want to change things up a little bit. Meg & Dan's wedding was a church ceremony with silk gowns and tuxes so I wanted a cleaner, more formal updo.

Jackie & Adrian are having an outdoor garden ceremony and the groomsmen will be wearing suits. I'm thinking an updo more like this -

And if you could make me look like Emma Stone, that'd be cool too. I found this photo of makeup that I loooove and look who it is...

Wow. Give me those lashes. As I've mentioned here, I am a huge fan of fake lashes. And I will certainly be using a few in Jackie's wedding. Hard to tell in the photo above, but we all wore extra lashes in Meg's wedding and just loved them. So worth it!

Original source of pictures above: 1) Kate Middleton  2) Braid updo  3) Emma Stone at the Tony Awards 4) Emma Stone makeup

Wedding Wear

Well I missed Fridays post. No big surprise there..... it was the last of the wedding week posts so lucky you, it is now Monday's post. Ta-daaa!

Here are links to all of last week's wedding posts:

• Monday- L&R pre-wedding festivities
• Tuesday - L&R's wedding!
• Wednesday - J&A's bridal shower
• Thursday - Homemade bridal shower favors

So, the question left is - what in the world did I wear to all of these wedding festivities?!

L&R Rehearsal Dinner

Dress: Nine West (via TJ Maxx) & I saw it at Macy's this weekend!

Sweater: J.Crew factory

 L&R  Wedding

Dress: Banana Republic

Shoes: Enzo Agliolini (Nordstroms)

Earrings: JoJo Blings

So in my, "oh crap the trolley will be here in 15 mins and I'm still doing my hair, have no makeup on, and need to get dressed" haste, I did not get photos of the hairstyle I attempted. So, this is how my hair held up at the end of the night..My original intent was to attempt this up-do. I quickly realized my hair was a bit too long for that but followed the basic idea.

J&A Bridal Brunch

Dress: Forever 21 (I know, right?!)

Shoes: Bucco (via Hautelook)

Wedding: Up-do's!

I don't have a recipe or fitness post lined up unfortunately. I've been a bit relaxed about the gym/morning workouts since the half-marathon and my cold....and when I don't workout, I tend to lose my healthy eating habits too. It's a bad combination.

But I won't leave you hangin. Instead, let's switch gears to weddings since I missed Wednesdays post! I try to have some fun with my hair when I have a wedding to attend. It gives me a reason to try out a new 'do I wouldn't normally have time for on a typical day.

In April, I found my inspiration from a magazine (here). For the wedding I'm attending this coming weekend, I think I'd like to attempt this simple updo:

I have loved this updo since originally finding it on The Knot back in college. And after being told by a hair stylist that my hair wasn't long enough for it, I hadn't given it too much thought. 

Well, thank you Kate and your amazing blog! I'm pretty sure I'd pinned 10 of Kate's hairstyles before realizing how great her blog was. Step-by-step instructions. Thank you very much!

Kate's simple, chic updo:

And some other up-do's I'm considering for the weddings I am in in June and August (requiring professional help):

All via

The only problem with these, that my sister pointed out, is that blonde hair tends to highlight all of the detail better. The different shades of blonde hair seems to make up-dos really stand out. So we're not sure if it will look the same in our brunette hair. 

Keeping my eyes peeled for some updo examples on a brunette!