Preparing For Your Wedding Trial

How to prepare for your wedding trial to ensure that you get the most out of it

Before attending your bridal trial, there are a few things to consider and plan in order to get the most out of the time with your hair and makeup artist. Read on to discover some useful tips on how to search for and compile a useful set of inspiration images!

What is a Bridal Trial for?

A bridal trial is a great opportunity to try out the hair and makeup look that you have in mind for your big day and to ensure that you feel totally happy and comfortable with your desired style. The hair and makeup trial is all about fine-tuning and ensuring that a style is adapted to suit you, making adjustments to tailor the style to your individual look and taste. It is important to approach the trial with a clear idea of how you would like your wedding hair and makeup so that the time with your stylist is spent perfecting the look and focusing on the finer details.

So where should you begin?

Start by doing some research and gathering some inspiration images. Great places to look for this are sites such as Pinterest and Instagram, and make sure to check our your chosen artist’s own portfolio, since you have booked them based on their work already!

Remember: When looking at inspiration images, think about what styles speak to you – are you a fan of relaxed, boho hairstyles, or is it a clean, elegant updo and soft, natural makeup that takes your fancy? Do you like big, glamorous waves and a smoky eye, or are you a fan of a relaxed low-bun and fresh, dewy makeup? Begin by considering the general style of hair and makeup that you like. This decision will typically be determined by your personal taste and the hair and makeup you tend to wear for events and special occasions generally.  

What next?

Once you have pinpointed the general style of hair and makeup that you’re most drawn to, start to hone in on more specific elements. Do you want your hair to be up or down? How are you used to wearing it and what do you feel most comfortable with? Do you want to focus more on your eyes when it comes to makeup, or is a bold lip your kind of thing? Perhaps you wear makeup daily, so you may be comfortable with wearing a bit more for your wedding day. Maybe you never wear makeup, so suddenly having a smoky eye or a dark lip might feel and look out of place. Try to consider what YOU feel comfortable with and once you have an idea of this, start to look for these elements in the inspiration images and eliminate the images that don’t align with your choices.

Now let’s talk details!

Now that you’ve established the general hair and makeup styles that you like and the specific elements that would feel comfortable for you, try to consider the finer details. When you are looking at the makeup and hair inspiration pictures, which hairstyles do you think would work for YOUR own hair? Do the styles in the pictures have the same hair colour, length and texture as your own hair? Is the skin in the makeup images similar your own complexion? Are the eye colours similar to your own? Start to hone in on these details and look only at images that match some of your own features.

Remember: It is important to think about how a hairstyle will look from ALL angles, including the front and sides (lots of online images only show the back!) Will a hairstyle work for you if you have a fringe, or if you wear your hair in a middle parting? These are things to consider when looking at inspiration images.

So you’ve found your style, but your Pinterest board is overloaded with images!

Hopefully, at this point you will have a good idea of the hair and makeup styles that you like and what would work best for you. Now try to narrow down your inspiration images to around 4-5 for each hair and makeup (about 8-10 in total). Being specific and condensing your inspiration pictures will help you to feel more prepared and confident about what you want from the trial. This doesn’t mean to say that your ideas won’t change during the trial, or that you need to be fixed on one style, but having a strong picture in mind of what you think you would like is the best way to enter your trial!

What about the trial itself?

At the bridal trial, it is really important to be open and honest with your makeup artist / hairstylist about what you believe suits you and how you normally wear your hair and makeup. Remember, this person may never have met you before and doesn’t have a good idea of what your usual style is unless you tell them (or better yet, show them!) Your stylist will want to ensure that the hair and makeup is to your personal taste and reflects your individual style, but this will be difficult if they don’t know what your style is! So don’t be afraid to inform the stylist of your go-to hairstyles or makeup looks so that they can learn a bit more about you!

Remember: If you are not a daily makeup wearer or you never do much with your hair, that’s OK! Just let your stylist know this and tell them if you’re happy for them to guide you at the trial and make some suggestions - they are experienced with working on many different faces and hair types so will have an idea of what will work best for you from an objective point of view. It is important to mention anything you want you stylist to be aware of or anything you need advice on so that they can listen to your needs and create a beautiful bridal hair and makeup that is unique to you!

Lastly…

Try not to feel stressed or anxious about your bridal trial – this is your time to have a fun and relaxing experience and to be pampered! Why not make a plan for after your trial, such as going out for a drink or dinner whilst you look and feel glamorous! Going through the process outlined above means that you will be able to use the time at your trial more effectively and will ultimately lead to a much more successful wedding trial. So enjoy it!

If you want to start gathering some inspiration images, head over to my Instagram or Gallery page and start saving!