Congratulations! You are getting married. And you won’t be just any bride; you will be a military bride.
Planning for your big day in the military comes with its own set of challenges like communicating through deployments, meeting and hosting soon-to-be family members for the first time and maybe you just arrived to your new duty station or must prepare to move while also planning your wedding. Never fear! Military Spouse is coming to the rescue with a few tips to show you how to easily flip those challenges into the most memorable moment of your life.
The Look!
This is probably the most stressed about part of the whole shebang. With much planning ahead of time, it truly does not have to be. The key is to determine your look early and set your goals accordingly. Even if you have to make changes later, altering with a plan in place makes changes a little easier to handle.
Great Skin for the Perfect Day
1. Begin a skincare routine as soon as possible: If you never had a system in place before, hop on. We are making up for lost time! A routine is not only great maintenance, but it also serves as preparation for something to come. A routine tells your skin, “I’m offering consistency in order to achieve the results we both want.” Your skin essentially has accepted your offering by giving you positive results in return. A routine will also make it easier for your skin to come back in balance after your big day of makeup, spirits, and stress which may all cause some breakouts in the following days.
Find professional products that will not waste your time, money and efforts. We have a wedding to plan and no time for any of those extra problems.
2. Seek help: If you have reoccurring breakouts or other skin conditions, now is also the time to find help with those. Depending on how severe your condition, you may need some downtime to heal in order to reach the glowing skin you seek for the big day. Speak with your skincare specialist about your specific needs and ask about working within your budget.
3. Rest and hydration: Great skin does not happen overnight, but night is when your skin does its best work. A lack of sleep results in dull skin complexion, inflammation, and deepening of wrinkles in the skin. Yes, planning a wedding can be time consuming, but try not to lose sleep as the damage can be far greater than the reward.
Drinking water is a necessity even when you are not planning a wedding. It helps to flush the toxins out of your body and reduce inflammation. The result can be supple and glowing skin. At this time, you may have included a fitness routine in preparation for your wedding making water intake even more important.
4. Breathe: Stress is inevitable when it comes to planning any wedding. Stress is also horrible for your skin. Our face has stress zones where we see those big, red, often painful pimples appear when we become stressed. These zones are on our forehead and cheeks (because there really is no place more noticeable than these areas, right?). Stress also brings about sleep deprivation and the occasional cold sore. Great!
This list is to alleviate unnecessary stress, but it is also important to cope with stress in healthy ways as situations arise. Are you dealing with constant TDYs or broken communication with your partner? Maybe a vendor fell through or the RSVPs are not coming in a timely manner. Breathe. Set aside time to spend time alone. Meditate and focus on nothing but your breathing. This will take you away from the problems at hand and put you back in control. From here, you can brainstorm some ways to alter the plan and make things work. You got this!
5. Glo Up: So, we are working on turning our face into that of a porcelain doll, but what about the actual glam-face for that magical day? Shop around for your makeup artist as early as four months prior. Finding one by word of mouth is best, so you will have first hand accounts of what to expect with this individual. Did they arrive on time? Were they good under pressure? Was the work done as expected? These questions are necessary because you have to be able to trust this person to take you beyond your normal everyday look to feeling and looking amazing to yourself and everyone else.
Your artist may add just a tad bit more than your everyday makeup look.
Set your limits, but also know that professional makeup artists understand exactly how much is needed in order to have you show-up the best for photos and from afar. Speak with her about how she plans to protect your skin prior to makeup application to ensure your skin can return to its healthiest state once your day is complete. She may discuss several primers which are applied after your moisturizer and before your makeup to create a barrier and smooth surface between your pores and makeup products. You should also be prepared to do a couple of practice runs to master your ideal look in a timely manner on the day of your wedding.
The Hair
Pro tip for wedding day hair: Just like great skin, great hair starts on the inside out. Drinking plenty of water and finding the right vitamin for you is ideal for healthy beautiful hair. Talk to your hairstylist about the processes you both can work on during the time before your wedding to achieve your look for your wedding day. Maybe you want to go for a lighter color- make this change in stages instead of going blonde in one day. Slow changes maintain the health of your hair. Speak to your stylist about practice runs for the look you want. This way, both timing and the look can be perfected before your big day.
