The Best Wedding Hair Advice for Brides and Stylists

The Best Wedding Hair Advice for Brides and Stylists

Weddings.

They are momentous, big days for brides, who want to look memorably beautiful.

Enter the hair stylist.

Stylists create beauty every day. A wedding booking gives the stylist a great platform to make the bride (and other members of her wedding party) gorgeous and filled with confidence. 

Perfect Partners

Since both the bride and the stylist want the bride to look her best, their goals are the same. Perfect. So, as partners, you need to work together to get the best outcome. 

So, here is the best wedding hair advice for the dynamic duo: the bride and her stylist.

Pre-Wedding Consultation

Plan a meeting with each other to prepare for the big day. You can combine this with a trial run (getting your hair actually styled) or have that on a separate day.

Be sure to discuss the following at this initial consultation:

The bride’s current hair care regimen.

The bride should listen to any advice that the hairstylist gives about getting her hair “show ready” for the big day. These might include usage of products, like masks and heat protectants.

Choosing a style:

Match the hairstyle to the style of your wedding. Will it be on the beach, in a church, in a fancy hotel ballroom? 

Consider the dress:

Be sure to look carefully at the dress together. A high necked gown works well with an updo, while a scoop necked gown looks amazing with the hair all the way down. Assymetric dress? Symmetric hair!

Don’t forget to think about accessories.

Will there be a veil? Any bling in the hair? Drop earrings or post? Special necklaces? Choker style or pendant style?

Length-wise:

Sometimes brides want to grow their hair long prior to the wedding. That’s fine, but brides have to be sure the hair is in perfect shape prior to the wedding. The best way to do this is to be sure the bride’s hair is recently trimmed or “docked” just before the wedding, so there are no split ends.

Color me beautiful.

Does the bride color her hair and what is her plan? 

Final hair coloring needs to be completed a week before the wedding. The bride should be sure to tell her colorist how her hair will be styled for the wedding, particularly if there will be a visible part. Ombre-colored hair might need some additonal highlights if there will be an up-do to avoid a blonde bun atop brown roots.

If the the bride has never had wild hair color changes, maybe the wedding day isn’t the best time to debut her wild side. Perhaps a small streak or a temporary color for the day of the wedding might be a better choice.

The details that make the difference?

Brides need to do a little bit of research, so they can inform the stylist as to what the accommodations will be on the day of the wedding.

Think about the location where all the hair styling will occur (at the bride’s home or the venue or the hotel or somewhere else.) How many electrical outlets will be available? Will there be a sink? Can you make sure there are enough chairs? What is the parking situation for the stylist and how will he or she transport their equipment? Will the bride be changing styles between the ceremony and the reception? Where and when will that take place?

Are there other players? The stylist should be informed as to who else will be preparing the bride. Make-up artists, dresser? The stylist should be provided with their contact information, so they can coordinate timing of hair and make-up, coming up with a realistic schedule.

How Many People are Getting Hair Styling?

Mothers? Bridesmaids? Flower girls? Stylists need to know all this information in order to figure out the final fee to charge the brides. More importantly, they need to figure out how much time they will need so the bride can have an accurate schedule of the day and who is getting styled when. Quite likely, the stylist may have to hire an assistant to help with secondary players, like flower girls and easy to style hair for the bridesmaids and mothers, if they are using the stylists’ services.

Our best wedding advice is that the stylist should be paid in one lump sum for all of the hair work being done that day. If the bride is not paying for other members of the wedding to be styled, then it’s the bride’s responsibility to collect that money (or give that task to the wedding consultant or the maid of honor). It’s absolutely not acceptable to make the stylist track down payments from multiple parties.

Preparing for a Trial Run:

Either on the day of the consultation or another day, arrange for the hair to be done as closely as possible to the way it will look on the wedding day. The purpose of the day is to make sure the bride and stylist’s vision works and that they have the same vision.

During the styling, the bride should watch the stylist carefully and speak up if things aren’t progressing the right way. Don’t do a big reveal (even though these are super fun). This way, the stylist can make corrections midstream, instead of having to redo all over again.

When the hairstyle is the way the bride wants it, the stylist should write down all the products used and any other facts that help recreate the beauty, like tools used and the order of how this gorgeous style was accomplished. The stylist should take lots of pictures, too, if this helps.

Brides: keep your wedding hair “on” for a few hours. Maybe this is a day you’re not going to see too many people, if you want to keep your special look under wraps.  The brides should particularly pay attention to what problems occur, if any,  and at what time interval. Tell the stylist of any difficulties, so that can be addressed on the big day with changes in product or clips or bobby pins. Do a little dancing, practice your vows, see how your hair feels “on” 

Show me the money.

The stylist should prepare a detailed contract and invoice, which shows the price, any deposit (recommended), the timeline and venue expectations and who is to be styled. The exact time and place of the ceremony, preparation area and reception (if a redo is needed) should be on the contract. Prepare a contract with as many details as possible and everybody should triple check the date and time. Be sure the number of people being styled is accurate and go over the schedule for the day.

The day before:

Be sure hair is neatly trimmed with no split ends. The bride should have her hair blown out the day before the wedding for pre-wedding festivities with minimal product, if possible. On the day of the wedding, the bride should arrive for styling with dry hair.

Working together, the bride and her stylist can ensure that, through excellent honest communication, she looks her best on her big day, which makes the stylist look amazing too. That’s the best wedding advice we can give.

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