The Hair & The Make Up

Bridal &  Bridesmaid Hairstyles

The Bride’s hair and make up ties the entire bridal look together. Each and every Bride has their own specific style of hair and make up that they feel suits them, or is the particular look they are going for on their wedding day – this is a very personal choice for the Bride.

Traditionally, the Bride wears a veil and has an elegant up-do. However, today not every Bride chooses to wear a wedding veil and there is such a huge choice of styles….the list is endless (especially if you take to Pinterest in search of ideas!).

I took the non-traditional Bride route – I have opted for fresh white spray roses and gypsophilia in my hair, rather than a wedding veil ( it is a coastal wedding, so the veil wouldn’t suit our setting). I had seen a hairstyle long before I was engaged that I absolutely loved, and that seems to have become a popular look for this year’s Bridal style – the waterfall braid. It is a  simple way of being able to wear your hair down, with some added interest tied in with the braid that can either slope down or go all the way round the crown of your head. I will be having the white spray roses and gypsophila entwined into the braid and a slight curl.

My bridesmaids will be wearing their hair in their own, individual styles. While they have yet to decide on their final styles, here are some of their ideas, and lovely bridesmaid (or bridal) hairstyles.

The Make Up

The best bridal make up is natural, soft and highlights your features. Less is more when it comes to bridal beauty, and a palette of soft gold, beige, and brown hues will create a lovely, bronzed look on your big day.

TIP: Visit a beautician a few days before your wedding and have semi-permanent eyelashes applied. They are individually glued onto your natural lashes (you can choose from various lengths and curls) and will really make your eyes pop! Best of all, you won’t even need to wear mascara or worry about your eye make up running if you tear up on your wedding day!

If you have never had semi-permanent eyelashes before, I would suggest having them applied several months before (at least 2-3 months) to make sure you like the look of them on you, then you can have them reapplied or filled in a few days before your wedding. The semi permanent lashes will last usually around 2-3 months as they fall out naturally with your natural eyelashes. Please remember to get a test patch done 24 hours before you have them applied.

Have a look at some of my favourite bridal make up looks:

 

 

Highlighting & Contouring:

 

The Music Playlist, The Processional & The First Dance

The music playlist for our DJ was probably one of the harder tasks I had whilst organising my wedding. People have very individual tastes in music, but when it comes to dancing, you can usually put together a good mix of songs.

My problem was that I just didn’t know where to start.

I knew that the DJ would have all of the new and old popular dance music, but sometimes that music can be SO cheesy and it just isn’t my or my fiance’s style. We much prefer a mix of oldies music (70’s/80’s/90’s), with some new country and then the popular dance hits and a selection of dance songs that we love (that you wouldn’t hear at your average party, wedding or disco). I searched for hours on end for ideas to accummulate a long list of fun music for our reception – but so many blogs and sites that I found had the exact same monotonous music, with those ultra super duper cheesy group dancing songs (like the ‘Macarena’! cringe). So after spending a couple of months scrolling through our own music files, Cd’s, iPod’s and searching the weekly top hits week by week – I eventually came up with a playlist we were happy with (although I’m sure I am still missing some great dancing songs that you always hear when you are out and can never remember the name of!). So for those of you in search of music playlists or music that is not quite so average and the same as every other wedding, please have a look through our wedding playlist and see if any songs take your fancy.

WEDDING PLAYLIST

Pre-Ceremony Music:

[All Instrumental]

– Elton John: Can You Feel the Love Tonight

– Rascal Flatts: Bless the Broken Road

-Lady Antebellum: Need You Now

Recessional:

– Michael Bolton: Steel Bars

Arrival of the Bride and Groom:

Thompson Square –  Are you Gonna Kiss Me or Not

 

During Dinner Music:

1. Akon – Sunny Day
2. Augustana – Boston
3. Augustana – Steal Your Heart
4. Bastille – Pompeii
5. Belinda Carlisle –  Heaven is a Place on Earth
6. Ben Howard – Keep Your Head Up
7. Billy Currington – Let Me Down Easy
8. Blake Shelton – Honey Bee
9. Bo Bruce – Save Me
10. Brandon Flowers – Crossfire
11. Cary Brothers – Someday
12. Cary Brothers – Ride
13. Damien Rice – Cannonball
14. Darius Rucker – This
15. Darius Rucker – Come Back Song
16. Darius Rucker – Might Get Lucky
17. David Gray – Babylon
18. David Nail – Let It Rain
19. Dire Straits – Romeo and Juliet
20. Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight
21. Ed Sheeran – Give Me Love
22. Florida Georgia Line (ft. Nelly) – Cruise
23. Fun – Some Nights
24. Garrett Hedlund – Give In To Me
25. Goo Goo Dolls – Iris
26. Howie Day – Collide
27. Jake Owen – Heaven
28. John Mayer – Paper Doll
29. Justin Timberlake – Mirrors
30. Kodaline – Love Like This
31. Labrinth (ft. Emeli Sande) – Beneath Your Beautiful
32. Lady Antebellum – Just A Kiss
33. Lady Antebellum – Need You Now
34. Michael Bolton – Said I Loved You (But I Lied)
35. Mike and The Mechanics – Whenever I stop
36. Mike and The Mechanics – Over My Shoulder
37. Noah and the Whale – L.I.F.E. G.O.E.S. O.N
38. Passenger – Let Her Go
39. Pink (ft. Nate Ruess) – Just Give Me a Reason
40. Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
41. Sarah McLachlan – Building a Mystery
42. Semisonic – Closing Time
43. Taylor Swift (ft. Ed Sheeran) – Everything Has Changed
44. The Band Perry – Walk Me Down the Middle
45. The Fray – You Found Me
46. The Fray – How To Save a Life
47. The Fray – Over My Head
48. The Lumineers –Ho Hey
49. The Script – For the First Time
50. Tim McGraw – When the Stars Go Blue
51. Uncle Kracker – Smile
52. Uncle Kracker – Drift Away
53. Uncle Kracker – I’d Be There

 

Dance Music:

 

1. ACDC – Shook Me All Night Long

2. Akon – Right Now

3. Akon – Sexy Bitch

4. Akon – Right Now

5. Armin Van Buuren – This is What it Feels Like

6. Armin Van Buuren – Going Wrong

7. Armin Van Buuren – Fine Without You

8. Avicii vs Nicky Romero – I Could Be the One

9. Avicii – Levels

10. Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start the Fire

11. Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling

12. Blake Shelton – Footloose

13. Bryan Adams – Summer of ‘69

14. Bryan Adams – 18 Till I Die

15. Bruno Mars – Marry You

16. Bon Jovi – Living on a Prayer

17. Calvin Harris (ft. Florence Welch) – Sweet Nothing

19. Chris Brown – Turn Up the Music

20. Chris Brown – Forever

21. Counting Crows – Mr Jones

22. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising

23. Daft Punk – One More Time

24. Darius Rucker – Wagon Wheel

25. David Guetta (ft. Kid Cudi) – Memories

26. David Guetta (ft. Sia) – She Wolf

27. David Guetta – Play Hard

28. David Guetta (ft. Sia) – Titanium

29. David Guetta – When Love Takes Over

30. Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen

31. Dire Straits –Tunnel of Love

32. Dire Straits – Walk of Life

33. Disclosure (ft. AlunaGeorge) – White Noise

34. Dolly Parton – 9 to 5

35. Eagle Eye Cherry – Save Tonight

36. Eddy Grant – Gimme Hope Jo’anna

37. Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina – Stereo Love

38. Enrique Iglesias – Tonight I’m Loving You

39. Fleetwood Mac- Everywhere

40. Flo rida (ft. Sia) – Wild One

41. Flo rida (ft. David Guetta) – Club Can’t Handle Me

42. Fuse ODG (ft. Wyclef Jean) – Antenna

43. George Harrison – Got My Mind Set On You

44. Guru Josh Project – Infinity

45. Jake Owen – Barefoot Blue Jean Night

46. Jason Derulo – The Other Side

47. Jennifer Lopez (ft. Pitbull) – Live It Up

48. Jessie J – Wild

49. Johnny Clegg – Impi

50. Johnny Clegg – Kilimanjaro

51. Journey – Don’t Stop Believing

52. Kesha – Die Young

53. Kesha – We Are Who We Are

54. Kid Cudi – Day and Night

55. Kid Rock – All Summer Long

56. Kings of Leon – Sex is on Fire

57. Lady Gaga – Bad Romance

58. Lionel Richie – Dancing on the Ceiling

59. LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem

60. LMFAO – Sexy and I Know It

61. Lynrd Skynrd – Sweet Home Alabama

62. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop

63. Maroon 5 – Moves Like Jagger

64. Martin Solveig – Hello

65. Men At Work – Down Under

66. Michael Bolton – Steel Bars

67. Mike and The Mechanics – Now that you’ve Gone

68. Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline

69. Paul Simon – You Can Call Me Al

70. Pink – Raise Your Glass

71. Pitbull (ft. Ne- Yo) – Give Me Everything

72. Pitbull (ft. Christina Aguilera) – Feel This Moment

73. Phil Collins – You Can’t Hurry Love

74. Rednex –Cotton Eye Joe

75. Rihanna – Please Don’t Stop the Music

76. Rihanna – We Found Love

77. R.I.O –Shine On

78. Sean Kingston – Fire Burning

79. September – Cry For You

80. Shakira (ft. Freshly Ground) – Waka Waka

81. Starship – We Built this City

82. Steve Angello & Laidback Luke (ft. Robin S) – Show Me Love

83. Swedish House Mafia – Don’t You Worry Child

84. Taio Cruz – Dynamite

85. The Killers –Mr Brightside

86. Tina Turner –The Best

87. Tina Turner – Simply the Best

88. Toto – Africa

89. Usher ( ft. Pitbull) – DJ Got us Falling in Love

90. Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl

91. Will.I.Am ft. Britney Spears – Scream & Shout

92. Whitney Houston – I wanna Dance with Somebody

93. Yves La Rock – Rise Up

 

The Wedding Processional

The bridal processional music is another tough choice that I faced. I didn’t want traditional choral music, as our wedding isn’t traditional, and we are not getting married in a Church. I felt that we needed a song that suited us better, but nothing ‘OTT’ weird and crazy (none of this pre-choreographed dancing down the aisle… cringe!).

I absolutely LOVE ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri (and surprisingly found out much of the rest of the World did too, as it seems to be a popular processional choice for 2013), and whilst I didn’t want the traditional instrumental music, I felt that a song with words in it may detract from the moment. So, I was very excited to find the instrumental (piano/cello) cover version of ‘A Thousand Years‘ by The Piano Guys on YouTube. It is beautiful and elegant and is the song I will be walking down the aisle to.

 

 

The First Dance

UPDATE: { Lonestar – Amazed}

[ We ended up doing ZERO dance practice in the lead up to our wedding, so we just ‘winged’ it!]

 

Now, I can’t give away my first dance song just yet, as we are keeping it as a surprise. My fiance and I had a couple of songs from when we first met that were ‘our songs’ and we had kind of decided right from the beginning that one of those would be our wedding dance songs. However, one night (whilst listening to my fiance’s favourite country music radio station!) we decided that the song we had chosen was just a little too cheesy and although it was a song we both loved and enjoyed from when we first met, it just wasn’t very “us”. So, my fiance immediately knew a song that would be perfect, played it for me on YouTube and that has been our song ever since – and it is perfect, I can’t imagine how we hadn’t listened to it or chosen it before.

Then came the next hurdle….we both kn0w how to boogie down on the dance floor but how many times in your lifetime do you have to do a formal dance? Well, one, apparently – your first dance at your wedding.  We found a dance studio that did lessons, but as  time went by we never got around to booking any lessons and kept putting off saying we’d ‘just YouTube it’. Then my fiance had to go away for work last minute a few weeks before our wedding, and we were left with one week (which is next week by the way!) in which to learn our wedding dance, so we’re going to have to YouTube it!

 

We didn’t want a complicated dance or anything that looks too choregraphed, where you spend the whole time paying attention to your footwork ‘right left slow quick quick left slow quick slow quick quick’ and end up looking so unprepared, whereas you could have just done the ‘shake, turn and wobble’ (what you do in 6th grade when someone asks you to ‘slow dance’) and looked much more together. So I have searched the internet high and low and am yet to come across the exact type of dance I would like to do (basically a very slow box step or foxtrot because my dress won’t be able to handle anything else, but not quite as boring as the shake, turn and wobble). However, below are a few YouTube tutorials (yes, some of them are so cheesy and you will have to get used to hearing a lot of ‘quick quick slow’, but the basic idea is good) that are along the lines of what I have been looking for, and what may help you out too if you are trying to practice for your first dance at your wedding!

 

DANCIN’ TIME

EASY DANCE STEPS 

THE ULTIMATE WEDDING DANCE

BOX STEP FOR BEGINNERS

HOW TO SLOW DANCE  – probably the best and most simple tutorial

The Ceremony & Reception Decor

 

This was one of my favourite parts that I organised for our wedding. I came up with loads of great, unique ideas to include in our big day on Pinterest. Although it was a lot of hard work finding the right decorations and putting everything together, I definitely feel it will be worth it when I see it all set up on the day.

 

 

The Ceremony

Apart from the pedestals and buckets of flowers lining the aisle (as mentioned in ‘The Flowers’ post), we will have a few other pieces to pull everything together. I bought cream coloured lanterns and filled them with shells ( bought from a shop), two silk red gloriosa flower heads (the national flower of Zimbabwe- my fiance’s home country) and a single white candle in the middle. I will use these to line the aisle, and then have them moved to be the centre pieces for the tables at the reception.

Hanging in the background of our ceremony venue, will be white paper lanterns in the trees and a variety of white, turquoise and light blue hanging lanterns of different sizes at the reception dinner venue above the tables, similar to the photos below. We will also have floor candle paper bags scattered around the dance floor, reception and garden area.

The chair ties for both the reception and ceremony venues are turquoise ‘kanga’ – a material from Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar worn by the local people. The particular kanga we have chosen to use as our wedding chair ties (and that I spent hours sewing into chair ties!) is a typical Zanzibar wedding kanga. I also created ‘MR’ and ‘MRS’ chair ties using the same material, and a white organza fabric. So as not to overpower the venue, we will alternate the chairs with white organza chair ties, and the turquoise kanga ones.

Tying in the blue beach theme of our wedding, we will end the ceremony with beautiful light blue dried hydrangea confetti ( The Real Flower Confetti Company) in hand made confetti holders that I made using white paper doilies.

Due to the extreme heat of Cyprus in July we also decided to provide white silk and wooden hand fans that come packaged in elegant boxes, and we have added a personalised label onto each of them. We  also bought seven white silk parasols that can be used by some of the guests if the heat gets to be too much for them ( and one light blue parasol, so that myself and my bridesmaids can use them for our group photographs afterwards). Both of these were bought from Ali Express.

The Reception

Moving on to the wedding reception, I created a table/seating plan using a mirror and a white chalk marker – an elegant, beautiful and easy way to present your table plan to your guests. The best part ( which came in very handy for us!) was so easily being able to rub out and rewrite guest names when there were last minute cancellations and additions! Each table will have a silver (spray painted) 3D number on it, so that guests will easily be able to find their table, and locate their name using a wedding favor/name place.

In Cyprus, it is traditional to present sweets to your guests as a gift. We wanted to embrace Cypriot tradition, whilst giving it our own twist. Our wedding favors are made from small glass jars with cork tops (and I have loads of extras that I plan to use as spice jars!), a white ribbon label, white mint heart sweets and an individual love heart sweet. It is difficult to cater for everyone when you are trying to choose a wedding favor that everyone will enjoy, so we felt that mints would be the best idea, with a cute added touch of an individual love heart with a sweet little message on it, different for each person.

My colour scheme to tie the day altogether: