Wedding Wednesday: Hair Trial

On my birthday, I had my first wedding hair trial! Today I wanted to share my experience, along with some hair inspo!

SO... these are the photos that I originally showed my stylist to help guide my vision. My hair is long and I'm more comfortable with it down, so I wanted to show it off on my wedding day. However, I LOVE the top of my dress and it has a gorgeous back, so I didn't want to cover that up.

I love the look of big, billowing curls, and I have trouble achieving that look on my own and having it last, so that's absolutely something I wanted for my wedding day. I love these half-in-the-front, half-in-the-back looks with emphasis on the "bangs." I think it's so glamorous and classy.

The first photo was my "goal" look; the girl's hair in the photo is about the same length, color, and apparent thickness of my own hair, so I thought it was a realistic, achievable look. I also like that her curls are looser and not all in one chunk (like the fourth photo), and also more of a natural hair texture and not unnaturally shiny.

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WELLP, long story short, it did NOT turn out how I wanted it. I find it a little difficult to get my hair to hold curl all day, but can still do a decent job with my cheap, old curling wand and drugstore Tresemme hairspray (like here, here, and here). What I walked out of the salon with that day was essentially something I could've achieved on my own, and I wasn't happy with it. During the process, the stylist kept mentioning how my hair doesn't hold a curl, which I knew, but figured a professional would have the tools, products, and skills to make it happen. I was so unhappy with it that I didn't even take any photos.

After that, I knew I wouldn't be able to rely on the Hollywood curls style I had envisioned, and I needed to opt for another style. Luckily, I already had a plan-B up my sleeve. I made another appointment with the stylist for the next week to try something different.

(Side note: I always have SUCH a hard time telling someone in the service industry if I'm not happy with the work they've done. I won't even send food back at a restaurant if it's wrong, it makes me feel so horrible. For wedding-related things I've been pretty laid back about everything and not nit-picked many things, but my hair is something that has to be close to perfect because it affects all of the photos of me from that day. I HATED making the stylist think that she didn't do a good enough job on my hair the first time, and she did her best to ensure me that she could do better if I gave her another chance to try, but at that point I didn't trust her or my hair to be able to achieve the style that I had in mind, and I didn't want to chance it. However, I was willing to try something different that might work better with my hair type.)

The next time, I wanted to go for a low bun style with a little volume on top, but overall pretty sleek and refined, not a ton of swirls or looseness like the typical "prom" style a lot of girls get.

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This time it went much better. Styling my hair up took just 30  minutes so I knew there wouldn't be any crunch time madness achieving the look again on my wedding day. There are still a few tweaks that I want to make to be satisfied with it: I want my part to show in the front so it doesn't just look slicked back, and I want the bun to be more round and sleek with less "swirliness" going on. (When I took it out that night, I discovered that the stylist had used two braids wrapped around a ponytail, so skipping that step next time will give me more of the look that I want. I'm still kind of nervous about how it'll turn out because I didn't want an updo originally, but I know that having my bridesmaids input the day of the wedding will help it to turn out perfectly.

This time I did take photos, so that I would remember what it looked like to provide critiques the day of the wedding. 

Why so serious?? I was honestly scared to see my own profile, hahaha.  It looks super flat on top, so I definitely want some more volume next time.

Here you can see the swirliness I was talking about. I definitely want it smaller, and to look like more of a traditional bun. 

Just practicing my cute faces for wedding photos....

xoxx, Laura