Bridal Makeup: Lessons Learned

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being a makeup artist for a day and do the makeup for my maid of honour's bridesmaids, which included myself. We got up at 5:00 am for the big day and we had until 9:00 am to get ready before the groom and groomsmen arrived. It was hectic, rushed, but ultimately a beautiful and super fun day.

Today, I wanted to share some lessons I learned from doing bridal makeup!

1. Don't underestimate how much time is needed to do each person's makeup. Even though we were up at 5am, I didn't start doing the bridesmaids' makeup until approximately 6:30am. I also had to wait for each bridesmaid to get their hair done. I did end up finishing the other two bridesmaids' makeup, but rushed on my own. Try to allocate at least an hour per person. 

2. Even if you pack a lot of makeup that you think you'll use, you'll probably only end up using 1/3 of what you brought. I probably packed 5 or 6 blushes, but I ended up using just the Hourglass Ambient Blush palette on the three of us. 

3. Don't wait until the last minute to match foundation shades. Unfortunately, we couldn't find time to meet up and do the foundation match at Sephora, so we did it the night before the wedding. For one of the bridesmaids, there was barely enough foundation in the sample bottle at Sephora to do a full face. We were lucky that there was just enough, but it would've been bad if we couldn't find matches in another foundation. 

4. Relating to 1., because I was doing the makeup as a friend and not as a vendor, I was asked many questions. Questions about what product I used, why I used that product, and what that product was used for. I also had questions about how to do certain things like, how to use gel liner, how to keep pencil liner from smudging, how to do a smoky eye, and so on. With so many questions, make sure to allocate even more time per person. 

5. While doing the bridesmaids' makeup, they kept saying I should consider doing it full-time and asking whether I've thought about it. Let me tell you, I thought about it at least a couple times that morning! But at this time, makeup is just a hobby and not something I feel could do at a professional level.

6. Prepare a makeup bag for touch ups in advance of the wedding day. I thought I would have time to pack all the essentials for the day, but I was already so rushed in finishing everyone's makeup. So, I just threw whatever brushes and powders and products I thought we would need for the touchups later in the day into a big makeup bag.

7. Corrector and setting spray are essentials. Corrector is necessary after staying up late the night before and getting little sleep, and setting spray will help the makeup last a lot longer than without the spray.

8. You get such relief and such joy when you hear from the bride that she loved the looks you did on the bridesmaids. Then it makes all the stress and pressure so worth it.