4 Essential Things your Makeup Artist and Hair Stylist need during Bridal Preparation!

So you're going to be getting ready at your wedding venue or perhaps you’re getting ready at home or a relatives house? Whether it’s a hotel bridal suite or another venue here’s our 4 essential things needed to help with bridal preparation so that the wedding morning runs as smoothly as possible.

A Window 

As large as possible as makeup is best applied in natural lighting. If you have a conservatory, even better! What about bringing a ring light I hear you ask? I’m personally not so keen on these. Although they provide a great light for taking photos in or for styled shoots in reality you want to look good in natural lighting as well as in your wedding pics, right? Plus I'd rather bring more of my lovely skincare and makeup products with me than lighting. However if I know your wedding venue is particularly dark or if the weather is predicted to be a bit of the gloomy side I will always bring additional lighting with me.

Image : Oleksander Pidvalnyi

Plug sockets - which are available

​An available plug socket (sorry we might have to ask you to unplug your phone charger for the morning) or two if its a larger wedding and we have more than 1 hair stylist on the job. Essential for plugging in our hairdryers, GHD’s, curling tongs and sometimes those good old fashioned heated rollers. We try to remember to bring an extension lead too but this is probably our second from top most forgotten item left at our last wedding location (number one spot, goes to our mirror!) So if you have a spare extension lead - even better!  ​

Image: Giuseppe Messina

A Fan

Bridal preparation rooms can get very hot with a room full of bridesmaids, mums and excited flower girls, especially in the midst of a heatwave!  We don’t want the makeup sweating off upon application (or more importantly the bride fainting!)

Image: @Athena

Seating!

Bar stools or chairs with a back for the bride to sit in are ideal. You’ll be amazed at how many wedding hotel rooms and bridal suites are lacking in chairs. When I was first starting out I used to bring one of those directors chairs with me.

Yep it looked professional, however it was a blimmin’ pain to carry alongside my already two heavy makeup kit bags! I also quickly realised this wasn’t ideal for everyone to climb into (especially nana) and could cause embarrassment for bridesmaids larger than a size 10! With fashion changing to a bigger booty too, my skinny directors chair had to unfortunately get the boot too!

Image: Pavel Danilyuk

​So that’s our top 4 requirements from a Makeup Artist and Hair Stylists' view! Have you experienced a fab bridal suite or wedding venue to get ready in? If so, we want to know!
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Next time we’ll be bringing to you our favourite Dorset and Hampshire wedding venues to get the bride and her wedding party ready in!

For more wedding days tips click here.