Make Up Solution

Per a friend's recommendation on Twitter, I ixnayed the idea of using Sephora to do my own make up. I couldn't justify spending almost $300 on make up alone.

So yesterday, per her recommendation, and the recommendation of a couple of other friends, I trekked down to Woodbridge to try out Ulta. Now, it wasn't that I had to go that far, they have a location in Downtown Silver Spring, but we were heading down to Ikea and Michaels anyhow, and made an afternoon of it.

After 30 minutes I was sold. Ulta, as a store has pretty much everything that has to do with make up, hair care, body care, you name it. Not to mention, they have a salon in there! I didn't check out the salon, however it might be worth my while in the future.

The person I spoke with, immediately after I mentioned bridal make up recommended me to this product:
The 7 in 7 kit - a $155 value for $55!!! She demo'ed it for me, it was light, easy, and comes with SEVEN full size products. It also comes in a few different shades for different skin tones! I bought the foundation and powder (that doesn't come with it) so all in all, with a couple brushes that I didn't have, I spent $130.

But! Ulta has an amazing rewards program that gives you 4 points for ever $1 you spend - and you get amazing rewards at various levels. I signed up for it and could already get $4 off my next purchase or I can wait till I spend more.

While I might not exactly live so conveniently to an Ulta, it's definitely worth going out of my way for.

Make-up Dilemma

So I went to Sephora today in Boston to do a makeup consultation for the big day which is in 41 days. I know! It's so soon!

The consultation went amazing! I loved what she did and if I had thought to take pictures, well I would have but no one went with me and I felt like a jerk taking pictures of myself in Sephora.

Unfortunately, I added up the cost of everything and $280. Not including the moisturizers she suggested I use and gave me samples of. Granted it all looks great but I don't really want to spend $100+ on foundation (HD Foundation/powder/brush) supplies that I'll likely never have a use for ever again. With fiance and I both being out of work I just don't have the cash for that.

I'm guessing I can probably find someone to do my makeup for less than that. So I'm on a mission, I have yet to find ANYONE to do my hair or makeup for my big day - a slight slacker. I know. I know.

Do any of you lovely DC area brides have any suggestions for people - salon or on site - who do hair/makeup and aren't over the top expensive? I'm trying to keep everything under $250 for myself and to between $45-75 per bridesmaids. I'm letting them choose how they do their hair so if they feel comfortable doing it themselves and don't want to spend the $$ then I'm okay with that.

"What are You Going to Do About That?"

I'm going to let you all in a well known secret - I have a tattoo. The tattoo is on my right shoulder blade, a small shooting star. My friends in college used to laugh and call it "the more you know" star because it resembles the logo of the PSA often seen on NBC -


The other week, after telling the FMIL about the bridesmaids dresses (she likes to be kept in the loop and to keep drama at bay, I give her updates on a need to know basis which I'm fine with) she asked about my tattoo. She hasn't approved of it since she saw it at a wedding where I wore a strapless dress and quickly asked if I was going to cover it up with a cardigan, which because it was the ceremony, I did. Since then, it's been a non-issue for the most part, my own mother was slightly disappointed when I got it, but I think a large part of that stemmed from the fact that I had talked about it for weeks and she didn't think I'd go through with it (which I did) because of my large fear of needles. Fortunately, I've never been one to chicken out of something because of fears (with an exception of my fear of bees).

I hadn't really thought of what I was going to do with it. I don't really want to go through the hassle of covering it up and risking getting make up all over my dress, but is it really something I want in my wedding photos for years to come?

But then again, it is a part of me, it represents for me, my youth, the fun I had in college and the friends I had. Of course back then, I also had a nose piercing, belly button, and two holes in each ear with a cartilage piercing to boot. I rarely wear earrings anymore, and if I do it's usually only in one hole. The belly piercing is only there because I'm too lazy to have it removed and I've never changed the hoop since I got it my freshman year of college; my nose stud fell out on my twenty-third birthday and because I was so close to my college graduation, I figured it was for the best.

But my tattoo was a decision I thought long and hard over for weeks. I ended up getting it at place in Burlington, VT when I was at home just before my twenty-first birthday. It's just there. I don't think about it often. It's small, tactful, and well, out of the way. I never actively try to cover it up, I don't wear a lot of clothes to work in the summer where it's shown so it's really only visible on the weekends.



I think I'm going to end up leaving it uncovered. I don't want the extra hassle and it's me. I can't remove it. It's there for good and I? Am okay with that. The people who may not be? Well, that's their problem, not mine.

Do you have any body art? How did you deal with it on your wedding day? Did anyone give you a hard time about covering it up?

Bridesmaids Makeup

I've got a dilemma. I've got a wonderful makeup artist that I'm contracting for my April wedding in Richmond. She's great at what she does. She is professionally trained, works for MAC as has done my makeup in the past, for engagement pictures and for a previous wedding that I was in. Some of my BMs have used her before also. She's very professional. We've got a great rapport, and most importantly, I trust her with my face. I met with her a few weeks ago and did a makeup trial for myself and to select the bridesmaids makeup looks. Afterwards, I received her quote. Since I've used her before, I was familiar and comfortable with her fee. One thing that I underestimated is her travel fee to come to Glen Allen. The mileage rate quoted is $1.75/mile for the nearly 250-mile round trip between Columbia and Richmond. This makes the total cost 20% more than my original estimate, which was based upon past experience. I included a buffer for travel fees, but clearly not enough.

I initially hoped to pay for all makeup (I did not communicate this to my bridal party.), but travel costs so much, that I am having to reconsider that. I now intend to pay for the travel fee and my own makeup and have the ladies pay the $65 each for their makeup. In the last wedding I was in, BMs each paid for their own makeup, and I didn't have a problem with it.

For my wedding, my BMs have only to purchase their dresses and shoes. I don't require any special hairdo. I only ask that hair be professionally done in whatever style they're comfortable with by whatever stylist they like. I am also gifting to the ladies all of their accessories, including jewelry (cultured freshwater pearls).

My questions are:

• Is it wrong to have the bridesmaids pay for their own makeup?
• Are travel fees a negotiable factor for something like makeup?
• What have your experiences been?

Miss Capitol Hill Wedding Recap - Posed Photos

Once we had the big reveal it was time to take the posed family photos. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to post most of those...I always found it kind of boring when people posted family photos cause nobody besides myself knows those people so it's not very helpful for other brides. But I will post some with the bridesmaids/groomsmen.

All photos below the work of Linda Wallace

^Before we went for photos we had to get the flowers! This is my calla lily bouquet from Blue Ridge Floral Design and my purse! I looooved my purse. I don't know why I even wanted one, but I did, and I searched high and low and never really found anything that I liked that wasn't insanely expensive. I ended up buying something that was "o.k." Then the day before the wedding I had a last minute errand to run and ended up at the Charlottesville shopping mall (which is tiny) and the only real department store they had was a Belk. Which is a pretty inadequate department store...but there on a sales rack marked down half off was my no name brand purse. It matched my dress perfectly and was only $25!

^Here is one of the groomsmen's bouts, also from Blue Ridge Floral Design

^Here we are with all the groomsmen. Navy Blue, three button suits from Men's Wearhouse, navy blue ties with green shamrocks and groom's kelly green tie with navy blue shamrocks from Wild Ties.

^Socks from The Gap

^Bridesmaid dresses from Maggy London at Nordstrom. Flowers from Blue Ridge Floral. Bridesmaid hair from Daphne Latham.

^My cutie flower girl in her Rare Editions dress from Dillards.

^Once photos were over we all began to leave for the church. Linda captured this great photo of my Dad looking on as fiance and I shared a moment.

Vendors So Far:

Video- Monachetti

Photography - Linda Wallace

Hair/Makeup- Daphne Latham

Dress Designer - Vwidon

Dress Salon - Promise for the Saavy Bride

Shoes - Vera Wang new from Ebay

Bracelet- Carolee

Veil- Occansey Design

Purse - Belk

Flowers - Blue Ridge Floral

Suits - Men's Wearhouse

Ties - Wild Ties

Socks - The Gap

Bridesmaid Dresses - Maggy London from Nordstrom

Flower Girl Dress- Rare Editions from Dillards

Miss Capitol Hill Wedding Recap - The Big Reveal

Like many couples, fiance and I chose to see each other before the wedding so we could have more time for pictures and not take time away from being with our guests. For us this was a good decision and I really like the moment we had to ourselves before we started out.

All photos below the work of Linda Wallace

^Fiance came and I got me in my room

^He looks impressed enough I think ;)

^Time for the twril

^Gotta check out the back

^This is my "i have on lipstick so don't mess it up" kiss

^Wow, we're actually getting married

^Time to go meet our families for pictures

^Here we come down the stairs to see our families

^Look how happy everyone is! This was as good as walking into the church for the first time

Vendors So Far:

Video- Monachetti

Photography - Linda Wallace

Hair/Makeup- Daphne Latham

Dress Designer - Vwidon

Dress Salon - Promise for the Saavy Bride

Shoes - Vera Wang new from Ebay

Bracelet- Carolee

Veil- Occansey Design

Miss Capitol Hill Wedding Recap - Getting Ready

Now that you guys have already seen my awesome wedding video, I'll start the recap of the day in photos. All the photos below are the work of our wonderful photographer, Linda Wallace. I've spoken before about how I chose my photographer and we were really happy with Linda's work. We got over 1,000 photos! And for the price...I feel like we got the steal of a century.

Much like my preferences with video, I really wanted a more photojournalistic style. Not that I don't love all those photos of brides jumping in the air (actually I hate those) or everyone standing in a wheat field (yes I do like these), but I wanted more of a journal of the day as it actually happened. I just feel that these photos will stand the test of time better.

That's not to say we don't have posed photos...just not a ton.

Of course it all begins with the getting ready....

Remember you can click to enlarge!

^Here I am with my great and incredibly affordable Charlottesville based hair & makeup artist, Daphne Latham. She was so much fun to have around.

^Daphne's kick-a$$ tattoo

^Talking with bridesmaids/family as I get ready

^I wanted a lot of curl since it's the opposite of how I normally wear my hair. Daphne made the curls very tight so that they would loosen the closer we got to the ceremony.

^I had a room all my own to get ready in that was next to my bridesmaid's room, my sister's room, and my sister-in-law's room. I liked this cause people could come in and out and chat but everyone had their own space to go back to and get ready.

^Here I am checking out the makeup in natural light. That's my dress behind me!

^There is my beautiful Vwidon dress from Promise for the Savvy Bride that I blogged about forever ago. To my knowledge this is now the only picture of this particular style anywhere online.

^And here are my awesome Red Satin Vera Wang shoes (if you remember, I got these brand new on Ebay for a steal)

^ I got so many compliments on my shoes all night long. If you are on the fence about colored shoes then all I can say is "DO IT!" It was so much fun. And remember, your guests don't read wedding blogs all day, so they have no idea that this is a huge trend. So many friends and family members thought I was so "original." Ha...if only they knew how un-original I really was!

^Now I've slipped into my dress. And I got into my dress all by myself! I never really understood why it takes 8 bridesmaids to put on a wedding dress. Mine was easy to get in and out of.

^Here I am putting on my wedding bracelet from Carolee that I loved.

^Getting ready to put on my shoes.

^ Look! I could put my shoes on all by myself too! Though I did have proper bridesmaid supervision.

^And now it's time to put the veil on

^Daphne getting things just right

^I wouldn't say all that fretting I did over veil length was worth it, but I was pretty happy with the length of my Occansey Designs veil. It was long, but not so long I felt like I had to keep up with it.

^I must not look too shabby if I got looks like this from my bridesmaids.

^Here I am...all done....ready for the big reveal.

Next up: the total look and seeing soon-to-be husband for the first time.

Finding Inspiration

Yesterday I ran across the blog of make-up artist Maria Chang of Professional Makeup Artistry (thanks Jennifer Skog).

If you're like most brides you probably always have your eye out for hair and makeup inspiration and if you are like me you are probably tired of seeing then ten or so photos that everyone has in their knot.com bios.

Like all things good related to weddings Maria is unfortunately located in California but I think her blog is really inspirational, because she posts the after shots of her trial sesssions so you will have a steady stream of new and different styles to look forward to.

Here are just a few of my favorite hair and makeup inspiration shots from her blog.

The Great Mascara Hunt

I'm not a big makeup person in general (mainly cause I don't know how to put it on very well), but there are two makeup items I'm very picky about. 1) Foundation. I'm super super pale so finding a foundation that matches is really hard (more about this later) 2) Mascara. I like my eyes, and like my lashes so it's a feature I like to play up, but not all mascaras are created equal.


I thought I'd share some of my favorite mascara finds from the past year or so. Mascara is a personal thing and it all depends on what you're looking for (curl? length? thickness? all of the above?). So before I start I'll tell you about my lashes and what I look for in a mascara.

1) I already have a lot of lashes and they are already long so I can't promise that the mascaras I like will work for someone with really short or sparse lashes. I don't really care about curling b/c I never felt like it really made a difference for me.

2) I don't like waterproof mascaras. I feel they are too harsh and I definitely wouldn't wear it everyday. Plus even though they are waterproof they still SMUDGE! Waterproof doesn't mean oil proof.

3) I HATE smudging. I already have dark circles under my eyes so smudging is something that really bugs me cause it makes me look even more tired then usual.


4) I have REALLY sensitive eyes. For some reason I tend to develop allergies to certain brands...even if I've been using them forever, sometimes my eyes will itch, get red, and swell. I regularly replace my mascara and even if I go and buy a brand new tube it doesn't help. So there have been a few times that I've found mascaras I really like only to have to go and find a new brand once my eyes develop an allergy to it.

So with that in mind here is what I liked and why:


1) ^Longcils Boncza Classic Cake Mascara in Noir. I know this French mascara doesn't really look like mascara. That's because it's cake mascara. It's mascara in powder form. You simply wet the brush, rub it into the powder cake and then coat your lashes with the brush. This particular cake mascara was worn by Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. You need not travel to France to get it, though, you can buy it in the U.S. here.


The Pros: I was really amazed that this actually works! My eye lashes were super soft and totally natural looking. It looks like I was born with naturally dark lashes. This is a great every- day, going to work mascara if you don't want to look like you are caked in makeup. The mascara is all natural (it has beeswax and rosewater in it) and it is the one mascara that NEVER bothers my eyes. Because it's in a powder form it doesn't breed bacteria like tube mascaras so you don't have to replace it as often. It's also very easy to remove at night. Wear this to give your lashes "a rest" from your normal routine.


The Cons: It takes *slightly* longer to apply in the mornings then just your normal tube and swipe mascara. If you want super dramatic lashes or you are use to heavy makeup then this is too subtle for you. It was great to wear during the winter, it has withstood the tear test as well, but now that humid days are back it definitely smudges by the end of the day. I'll probably wear this mostly during the non-humid months.



2)^ Blinc Kiss Me Mascara - This was the first "tube" mascara I ever tried and I loved it! Instead of painting your lashes it forms little black tubes around them.


Pros: Because there is no painting involved there is no smudging, smearing, or running. The only way to remove this is with warm water and gentle pressure (i just use cetaphil face cleanser and a wash cloth and have had no problems). It's pretty gentle on your eyes. Sometimes I have slight irritation but for the most part it's non-irritating. It has withstood the tear test. No smudging either!


Cons: I still have some irritation even though it's minimal. It's a good everyday mascara but once again it isn't SUPER dramatic. Probably not the best for special occasions.



3)^Imju Fiberwig - Similar to tube mascaras, Fiberwig forms a film around your lashes instead of painting them. Unlike Kiss Me mascara, however, it coats your eyes with fine micro fibers to give your lashes more length and thickness.


Pros: Provides a much more dramatic look then Blinc Kiss Me. This is a good mascara for everyday and for going out. When I first wore it Fiance said "your lashes look really long." And another friend I hadn't seen in a while commented on how long my lashes looked. It's easy to remove (cetaphil and a wash cloth). It has withstood the tear test and NO SMUDGING.


Cons: The biggest Con for me is that even though there isn't smudging, there is FLAKING. By the end of the day I always have few specs of black under my eyes from the mascara falling off my lashes. It's nothing major and way better then smudging, but still kind of annoying. This mascara is also slightly irritating to my eyes if I've worn it for a while.




4^Kevyn Aucoin "The Mascara"-Curling - Kevyn Aucoin based this mascara off of Japanese mascaras like Fiberwig. It's another type of "tubing" mascara but as it dries it "shrink-wraps" around your eyelashes to make them curl.


The Pros: Definitely the most dramatic lashes of all the other mascaras I've mentioned. You will definitely have super dark and long lashes. Easy to remove (cetaphil/washcloth). It has withstood the tear test and there is No Smudging! I've also gotten compliments with this mascara on how long my lashes look. It flakes much much less then Fiberwig.


The Cons: I've never really noticed that it makes my lashes curl anymore then any other mascara. Some flaking but less then Fiberwig. Even though this flakes less the Fiberwig it can also be REALLY clumpy. You HAVE to wipe it with a tissue or along the rim before you apply or your lashes will stick together and be clump city. This kind of annoys me. This does irritate my eyes after I've worn it all day.




5^Giorgio Arman Maestro Mascara - This is just a normal mascara but it has a really unique brush. The brush actually looks a little scary. It's not soft and fluffy like other mascara brushes...it's a hard wand with rigid teeth. I know this sounds horrible but it doesn't hurt and it's pretty easy to apply.


Pros: Hands down this is for SUPER DRAMATIC lashes. I've never really noticed if mascaras are "thickening" or not but THIS is thickening. I already have a lot of long lashes but with this mascara I felt almost like I was wearing fake lashes they were so dramatic. This is for a special night out or if you are use to having diva makeup on.


Cons: I only had a one day sample of this so I really can't speak to whether or not it will withstand the tear test. I can say, though, that it didn't smudge (even after a day on an airplane). It does irritate my eyes after a day of wear.


6) P.S. Two mascaras that often get raves that I just didn't really "get" are 1- Maybelline Great Lash Mascara- I know it's the best selling mascara in the U.S. but it seemed clumpy and smudgy to me. I just don't understand the popularity. And 2 - Dior Show Mascara - I know it gets rave reviews and everyone loves it, but I just didn't see what was so special. My lashes weren't any longer, darker, or thicker then with any other mascara. What am I missing about this, why is it so popular?

So what's your favorite mascara? Got any recs for me to test drive? Remember I like non-irritating, non-smudging and preferably water resistant but not a "waterproof" mascara.