BEFORE THE TRIAL

Once your wedding trial is booked, you might wonder what you're actually supposed to do before you arrive. You don't need to have every single detail worked out. The collaboration between artist and client is a big part of the process. You don't hand me a photograph and ask me to reproduce it. You can arrive with a very clear idea. You can arrive with fragments.

Both are useful.

START WITH YOURSELF

Before looking for more references, look at photographs of yourself. Not necessarily photographs where the makeup was technically perfect. Find the ones where you recognise yourself and like what you see. A photograph taken at golden hour in Naples, when all you're wearing is mascara but you love how you look, can tell me a lot.

It tells me what you notice about yourself. What you instinctively choose to emphasise. How you wear your hair when nobody has told you how you're supposed to wear it. What your version of looking good already is.

Your everyday choices matter too.

Hair up or down. Skin bare or perfected. Strong eye or almost nothing.

None of this is incidental. It's the starting material.

REFERENCES ARE A LANGUAGE

Your references don't need to be bridal. In fact, I love it when they're not. They can come from a runway, a campaign, a film, an editorial or even more abstract references. A scrap of material you love the colour of. A glass-tiled wall? Yes, send it over.

I don't need every image to show the same look. I'm looking for the thread between them.

Perhaps every face has very little visible foundation. Maybe everything you've saved is severe and graphic, despite describing what you want as "natural". That is useful information. The point isn't necessarily to reproduce a reference. It's to understand why you chose it.

Hair requires a little more realism. Colour, density and texture change the way a style reads dramatically. Details visible in blonde hair can disappear almost completely in very dark hair. Natural texture behaves differently from tonged texture.

The line between your dream hair and the hair you have is where we meet to make it work.

And don't forget to double check. AI-generated hair and makeup is everywhere. If an image has no identifiable source and the hair appears physically impossible, there's a reasonable chance that it is.

I'd genuinely rather see inspiration in the form of a squirrel sporting the best shade of brown you've ever seen.

LOOK AT THE WHOLE IMAGE

Your outfit, hair accessories, shoes, jewellery, everything contributes to the final image.

Show me what you're wearing. Bring your hair accessories. If you're wearing a dress, wear something with a similar neckline or colour to your trial. If you're wearing a suit, bring a jacket.

Hair and makeup don't exist in isolation. When the rest of the information is missing, it's much harder to visualise the finished look.

LEAVE IT WITH ME

You bring me the raw information. My job is to edit and interpret it. And in all honesty, it's one of my favourite parts of the job. Once we're working, tell me what you see. A trial is not a reveal. You are part of the process. We can remove things. Make something stronger. Strip something back. Abandon an idea completely and take another route.

And, as I love to tell my clients:

It's hair and makeup. Not working? Very easy to change. It really isn't that deep.