To Trial Or Try Again

I remember when my sister Julia and I were younger, we would sit at the salon and flip through magazines to find the perfect cut, which our favorite celebrity at the time, was sporting. We would find pictures and bring them along, excited to get the same look as Britney Spear’s bouncy bob in her Herbal Essense ads or Reese Witherspoon’s flippy little cut in Sweet Home Alabama. Often times, there was a little Q & A to nail down our wants and then the stylist went to work. The stylist would spin the chair around and ... Surprise! Why do I look like one of The Beatles?! Obviously, something got lost in translation! Regardless, we would smile and say we liked it and we would run for the door so no one would see us crying on the way to the car. What went wrong?

Trial season for weddings is in full swing and brides bring in pictures and pins all the time. I’ve learned from my own experience to ask a lot of questions to really understand what my client likes and dislikes about these looks. Like Julia and I, people show pictures of celebrities and people they’ve seen on social media with a full face of heavy makeup, or the trendiest smokey eye, or cut crease with glitter and that is DEFINITELY the look they want for their wedding day (even though they barely wear makeup on a regular basis). Honestly, clients often have no idea how much goes into looking like that. So like the stylist in my haircut story, I go to work doing my best to recreate the look they so badly want. Time to look in the mirror, “Oh my god! That’s so much makeup!”, “I feel like a clown”, “I look like a drag queen!” (No offense to any of my drag friends, y’all are gorgeous!) I’m just quoting some of the things I’ve heard over the years. This was their Ringo Star moment. Sometimes brides will walk out without saying a word and go home and hopefully not cry, but send emails and texts on things they want to change.

Ladies, don’t make my mistake of getting in the car unhappy. Speak up at your trial and work with your artist/stylist to get the look you REALLY want, that’s what a trial is for, to TRY looks you think you’d like for your special day. When booking your trials, bring references but also bring a picture of yourself with makeup on when you felt best. Your artist can build on that instead of going in blind trying to make you look like the next Carrie Underwood!