Wed Recap: Jane plain and simple

Or maybe I should title this post "Stacey plain and simple" ?

Today, I want to briefly recap my thoughts on my wedding day hair and makeup.  But first, let me just tell you ladies, that the days of the up do are gone...everyone had their hair down in my bridal party (and 3 years ago in my sister's bridal party)!

To share with you how I felt about the wedding hair/makeup, I'll remind you of how Mr Fix It told me my right eyelash was coming off during the soloist's performance in the middle of our ceremony.  As soon as I walked in to the bridal cottage after the ceremony, I just pulled the eyelashes off completely as I didn't want to waste time trying to replace it.  So basically, I was really complacent about how I looked on the wedding day.  Mostly because I just didn't feel like I needed to worry about anything...nor did I want to.

A few days after the wedding, Mr Fix It and I had the following conversation:

Me:  I wasn't really thrilled with my hair on the wedding day.
Mr Fix It:  Why?  I thought you looked pretty.
Me:  Yes, but all the girls looked way better than me.
Him:  You looked fine.
Me:  Yeah, but I felt like I just looked very...
Me & Him at exact same time:  plain.

Yeah, exactly...that's the word.  There was nothing spectacular or done up about my hair that day like it had been in the trials.  In fact, it barely held the curl at all (but that's not really the stylist's fault...my hair NEVER holds curl of any kind).  The main reason why was probably because of my inability to focus and remember things I had planned.  My 'go with the flow' attitude led to this conversation on the wedding day during my hair styling:

My stylist:  Ya know, I'm afraid if I use the extensions in your hair they're going to pull out your natural hair curls.
Me:  Really?  Why, do they look like they're falling out?
Her:  No, but I think the extensions are too heavy and will pull it out.
Me:  Ok, then...whatever you think is best.

BIG MISTAKE! 

I should have stuck to my plans and used the extensions because they definitely held curls better than my natural hair.  On top of that, I shouldn't have told my stylist on the wedding day to not do any teasing on my hair at all since I had let her tease the top a little during the trials. 

I did in fact feel like the girls' hair came out way better than mine did.  And I did truly love my makeup as well.
Granted, regardless of all of this, I truly loved my makeup for sure.  And the fact that we were able to do a post wedding shoot gave me the opportunity to do up my hair a little better and different while in my gown.  When Mr Fix It arrived on site the day of our post wedding shoot, he looked at my hair and immediately said "Now, THAT'S how your hair should have been on the wedding day...much better."

In addition, I have to rave about my stylist, Natalie Buketov because she truly was a sweetheart and it was so amazingly generous of her to do my hair/makeup free of charge for the post wedding shoot simply because she was disappointed that one of my false eyelashes came off during the wedding ceremony. 

Share Time:  Did you feel totally satisfied with your hair and makeup on your wedding day?

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: Don't use old makeup, especially lipstick!  Sit down with an attendant or family member before your wedding day and go over photos, colors, styles, and anything you have to show them what you want or are supposed to look like on your wedding day.  Then when your hair and makeup is finished, have them check you out before the stylist leaves and give their approval of the finished work.  And stick to your plans if you liked them in your trial(s).

The second time around: Exciting news!

So ladies, I've held my tongue for over a month now about some exciting news I have been dying to share with you.  Thanks to the lovely Laura over at Happy Hour with a Housewife, I was able to do some internet browsing via the weddingbee.com classifieds and find a wedding photographer who did a post-wedding photo shoot with me, Mr Fix It and my daughter, Little Miss yesterday!  Typically this is called a day after shoot or a trash the dress shoot, but since it was done 4 months after our wedding and I didn't officially trash the dress, I'm just calling it a post wedding shoot.

You may recall that I was really wanting to do this since I had mentioned in previous posts about how disappointed we were with our photographer.  I also shared about how our photographer pretty much blew us off when I tried to contact him to request some compensation for the lack of photos that we had asked for and didn't receive.  Mr Fix It had said he would be willing to go back to our venue and do another photo shoot but *only* if we had another photographer do it and only if our photog would reimburse us to be able to pay another photog.  Well, since he didn't agree, I wrote off our chances of a post wedding shoot.

But then Laura (who had a lot of the same disappointments about her own photos as I did) suggested I browse weddingbee to find photographers who sometimes offer free engagement sessions.  I e-mailed about 3 different photogs I found and was delighted when I made contact with Rachel Garcia of Brilliant Imagery. 

Rachel is a wedding photog from Vegas who had scheduled a road trip along the So Cal coast at the end of July.  She typically works with a lot of California brides and wanted to see if she could branch out into destination weddings here in So Cal.  So she went up and down the coast offering free e-pic sessions and photo shoots to familiarize herself with the cities, venues and get some photos for her portfolio and website.  When I shared our story with Rachel about how I don't even have one photo of me and Mr Fix It with my daughter from our wedding day, she felt horrible and apologized on behalf of 'all wedding photographers out there.'  Then she told me that she checked out our venue's web site and would love to shoot there for us.

So yesterday, me and my daughter donned our wedding attire again and Mr Fix It put on a nice black suit (no tux this time) and we headed back to Rancho Las Lomas to spend a few hours in the late afternoon browsing the grounds of our wedding venue and snapping some fun, romantic and missed shots post wedding.

Here's the details of the day:

**  Venue:  I e-mailed the venue and they agreed to let us come back on an off day (we picked a Tuesday) completely free of charge and we had total access to the entire venue again...and this time, the tigers were out!  I cannot wait to show you these pics!
**  Hair/Makeup:  My amazing stylist, Natalie Buketov, felt horrible about the fact that one of my false eyelashes was coming off right after our ceremony on our wedding day.  So she e-mailed me offering to do my hair and makeup for our re-shoot totally free of charge!  I only had to pay a $20 sitting fee to the studio she works out of since she is not usually there on Tuesdays.
**  Bouquets:  What's a wedding shoot without a bouquet?  My ever so talented florist, Allison of Flower Allie offered to make us some smaller bouquets in the same color but a little trendier for me and my daughter to use for our photo shoot.  The only cost?  She just asked that our photog get a couple good shots for her to put in her portfolio.
**  Suit:  Mr Fix It just wore one of his own nice black suits instead of paying to rent the tux all over again.  Only difference?  This time, we got the infamous shoe shot I had been longing for!
**  Dress:  I had already had my dress cleaned but my dry cleaner who I have frequented for years told me he would re-clean the dress for less than half of what I originally paid after we re-did our photos.  This was the only other charge I had for the photo shoot. 
**  Alterations:  I didn't need any alterations done to the dress but my seamstress offered to steam the gown for me for the shoot and even touched up some of the bustline where the beading and threads had come loose from the drycleaning.
**  Other help:  My cousin, a bridesmaid who had helped my sis get me into my gown, came down with us and did the hair/makeup for my daughter and then helped get me into my gown and jewelry for the pics.  What a sweetheart she was!  Little Miss also wore the same dress she had worn as a bridesmaid.

So all in all, I paid about $85 to have a post-wedding shoot.  Rachel was so amazing and fun to work with and did a fabulous job of making us feel relaxed. 

And this time around, we got shots in the orange orchard, near the antique car, near the fish pond, in front of the fountain pool, and in several other places around the grounds that we had asked for from the first photographer but didn't get captured. 

I absolutely cannot wait to show you the photos once we get them all back from Rachel! 

As a side note, my florist, Allison, did tell me that even though it was unfortunate that we didn't get all the shots we wanted from our photographer, he was in fact an above average wedding photographer.  She said she was in tears at one wedding about a month ago where the photographer was horrible and didn't get hardly any good shots at all.  I have to agree that we did in fact get a lot of great shots from him for sure (as I will be sharing my wedding album with you soon), but it was so nice to be able to go back in a relaxed setting and get some of the shots and locations at our venue that we weren't able to get on our wedding day.

And the breakdowns begin...

So for 14 months now I have been saying that I refuse to be stressed while planning this wedding.  So much for my plans.  I have been so great about keeping on top of almost everything.  Though there is still much to do, we are moving along. 

All I can say is I am so glad we nixed the idea for a choreographed dance a month ago.  There is just no way I would be able to do it all. 

Monday and Tuesday were my emotional breakdowns and I am now literally a bride on the brink of tears at almost any given moment.  :(  I found out Monday night that my Grandmother (almost 95) is most likely really near the end of her life.  With just 43 days to go until the wedding the one thing I was truly praying for is that Grandma and our pitbull (who was recently diagnosed with a terminal heart condition) would survive until we return from our honeymoon.  My Grandma has been really excited about our wedding and now it looks like she can no longer make the two hour drive to get down here and attend.  I am okay with that as much as she will be missed.  But what I know will be just unbearable is if she passes away between now and our honeymoon.  I will just be a wreck at the moments I know her name will come up.  And most of my family has been making the trek out to her place in Hemet to visit her this week.  My cousin called me yesterday to say that she took the day off to go see her.  Hospice care has started coming to visit her home every day now instead of every other day and she has been on morphine for about a week I think.  So all the signs are that she will not last much longer.  I am heading out to see her today but the phone calls I've had to make to plan for the drive out there have left me bawling in tears at the thought that I 'have to go see my Grandma now.'  It just sounds like we are going to be lucky if she hangs on for even another week or so.  And then yesterday, I got a call that she fell out of bed and spent the entire night in the hospital and is now home with staples in her knee and a brace.  Anyway, prayers for my sanity at this uncertain time are definitely coveted.

But on top of that, I'm also dealing with the stress of trying to make time for the move and renovations of Mr Fix It's home...while we are making a lot of headway, we still have so much to do in just about 3 weeks time! 

And now, one of my bridesmaids is crying all the time about how she can't afford to pay for her dress and her hair and makeup which my stylist is insisting we stick to the contracted terms and pay for.  (My mom and cousin wanted to back out of their commitment to pay the $70 to have their hair and makeup done which they agreed to last June).  So I feel like I am stuck in the middle with understanding that we need to honor our contract but not wanting my mom and cousin to feel stressed about finances. 

This is supposed to be a happy time and all of a sudden I am feeling the stress and frustration that I have been able to mostly avoid for the past 14 months.  If I had to deal with this stuff, couldn't it have been much earlier and not 43 days before the wedding?!?

I understand 43 days seems like a long time, but it's really not when you throw in working full time and being a single mom to a teenage freshmen!  In March alone I already have 16 days filled with appointments of some kind - both personal, doctor and wedding related. 

And Tuesday I pretty much just cried all day long - because of my Grandma, because of the stress of all the wedding stuff left to do, because of the stress of moving into Mr Fix It's place and all the life change and emotions that it brings with it.  While I am excited, I am also mourning the loss of my 'freedom' by living on my own and mourning the loss of the city I have loved for almost 20 years now.  Even though I am moving only about 25 minutes away, the city I live in and the one Mr Fix It lives in are night and day!  It's going to be a serious adjustment for me to get used to. 

Seriously - I am getting over this real fast.  I called Mr Fix It and told him to get ready for the full waterfall at any moment.  I am sure it is coming at some point.  (sigh)

Wedding day trials: Hair & Makeup

I thought I'd share some pics from my past trial sessions.  The hair and makeup stylist I hired started in the movie industry and got to the point where she didn't like traveling so much and so she focuses mostly on weddings now.  Your hair/makeup trial is included in her price if you decide to book with her once it's done (if not, you have to pay like $75 for it).  I really loved her as a person and as a stylist.  She listened to me and has done great work.  I liked what she came up with based on the few photos I showed her:

  

But after seeing it on me, I wasn't feeling it pulled back so much.  So I asked her to put it 'down around my face' more:

Ok, I don't know who that person is in that photo but it really isn't me!

So after mulling it over, I also decided I didn't like the 50's beehive 'bump' going on at the top of my head.  And the 'white' shadow she used in the corner of my eyes to 'open them up' just wasn't cutting it for the more romantic and soft dramatic look I wanted. 

For my engagement session in July, I went to the MAC counter at a Nordstrom's and took a picture in to show the girl.  I have to say I have never loved the makeup someone did on my face more:

One thing I noticed is that I will definitely have to invest in some oil absorbing cloths as those of us who suffer from oily patches must have these to carry around to dab at our faces on wedding day during photos.  This is a task that my lovely Matron of Honor will help me out with :)  You can get these cloths in any drugstore or makeup aisle.

So I went ahead and paid my stylist to do a second trial run just before Christmas.  I showed her the pics we had from the first trial many months before and compared them to my engagement pic makeup.  She said even she wasn't feeling the 'shininess' on my face or the bright white look in the corner of my eyes and thought my e-pic makeup was better.  This was our new result (excuse my truly stupid half smile):

The lipstick I had on in the e-pic session makeup just above is the same lipstick she used on me in the new makeup trial.  Look at the difference!  I had purchased some Covergirl lasting wear lipsticks/lipglosses and she took the two I love and worked them together and now I love that color on my lips! I am also in love with the more dramatic and just slightly darker look of my eyes. Though I told her I may want to do just a little less blush on wedding day.  And you have to remember I will also be tan on wedding day like in the pics above whereas in December when we did this, I was definitely *not* tan!

So I showed her some new pics and inspiration for the hair as well and we came up with this:

 

For the hair, I loved it as well but was still getting just a little bit of a 'bump' from her...mostly because she was using it to cover up the clip on extensions I had in :) So I e-mailed her that on wedding day, I definitely don't want any teasing done on top of my head :)

You'll have to excuse the two different shades you see in my hair...I had my hair colored and will be getting a touch up before the wedding. When I do, my hair stylist is going to color my clip on extensions as well so they'll match and blend right in. :) 

Here's a great shot of hair and makeup all done with my new and final look:

Side note:  Can you please just look at the stupid crows feet around my eyes in this pic above?  Now go back and look at the pics from back in July...notice the difference?  It's called BOTOX!  I am a huge anti-plastic surgery fiend...I think it's silly to alter your looks, body or appearance in any way that you can't do on your own with diet and exercise.  However, I just thought I'd try out a little botox back during the e-pic session and hair trials and I loved it!  So come wedding day, I will definitely use a little botox one more time to be sure those nasty little wrinkles and crow's feet don't become a part of my eternal photos!  Just something us late 30 something brides should be able to treat ourselves to without any guilt.  :) 

Last tip for wedding day makeup: FALSE EYELASHES!  I would normally never deal with them (I never even wear mascara), but your makeup artist should definitely know how to put these on and they are like $3 at the drugstore.  If you get the darker ones, you don't even need to apply any mascara at all which is huge if you are like me and know that you will end up crying at some point on wedding day.  :)  But after wearing them in the two above trial runs, I found that she has some ridiculously stay put mascara that we can use and I am on the fence about whether or not to use the falsies.  I think I will just go for the more natural eyelashes first and see if I think I need falsies on wedding day.

So, what do you think?  Any suggestions?