Everyone says your wedding is the best day of your life and it really is. The whole day, not just the wedding itself. Although wedding days for the girls tend to start early, spending quality time getting ready with your best friends is always a good time. I decided to write this blog post to go over all of the “girl details” including hair/makeup/bridesmaid dresses/ getting ready/etc.
Makeup & Hair:
Our day started at 7:00AM and I would be lying if I said I didn’t roll out of bed at 6:55 right before the makeup artists arrived. I did a ton of research on makeup and hair artists and ended up booking the Kiss and Makeup team to do our hair and makeup. I loved their natural glam style which is what I was wanting. I’d highly suggest stalking your makeup company’s Instagram page to truly get a feel of their style. Save your favorite looks from them too so you can show them exactly what you’re looking for.
I let the girls decide if they wanted to get their hair and makeup done and two opted out of it but 4 of them got theirs done. Some of us love being dolled up and some are just natural beauties. My only request to them was no up-do’s because I was wanting a very casual vibe. Kiss & Makeup was there from 7:00-11:30 and they did 4 bridesmaids, my mom, mother in law, and myself in that time. We paid $125 for airbrush makeup or and $200 for both hair and makeup. Below is a picture of one of my best friends, Valerie, with her hair and makeup done.
Gifts & Food:
For gifts, I gave each of my bridesmaid matching tropical PJs from Amazon and a beautiful round rattan purse so they could have a matching bag for their phone and such for the wedding (similar linked here). The entire gift cost me under $20 per girl and my cousin helped make these cute tags for their bags with her cricket. We got starbucks (much needed) and food from the breakfast buffet downstairs, then slowly switched to mimosas and champagne. By 11:30 when I was done with hair and makeup, we were starving and when the girls asked me what I wanted for lunch, of course, I picked Chick-fil-A. A Chick-fil-A photo shoot ensued and I’m not going to lie, these are some of my favorite photos.
Bridesmaid First Look:
At 1:00, the photographer, Ashlynn, arrived and we took “detail” pictures meaning the rings, garter, dress, etc. Then I hopped in my dress (okay it was much more work than that) with the help of my mom and did a first look with my bridesmaids. My best friend, Jess had flown in two weeks prior to the wedding and had gone with me for my bridal portraits so she had already seen the dress, but for the other girls, it was a surprise. Ashlynn had them line up in an open part of the hotel and cover their eyes, then I walked out and surprised them. It was so fun but not as fun as the first look with Cody.
Bridesmaid Dresses:
We had originally tried to have the bridesmaid dresses custom made. I found a beautiful hunter green satin at Joan Fabrics and designed a pretty one-shoulder beachy style dress. This ended up not working out for multiple reasons but really it came down to the fabric not arriving in full and running out of time to finish the design. I found the same looking fabric that I loved on a website called Hello Molly and had all the girls purchase from there instead. I felt bad that the custom dressed didn’t work out but they ended up really loving the Hello Molly dresses and I heard “I feel like a princess” from a few of them so I think it ended up working out for the best. The dresses did have pretty high leg slits but we didn’t have any issues. The dresses were around $80 and we were all very impressed with the quality.
For shoes, the girls all wore tan block heels in order to be able to walk in the sand and they looked so nice. Three of the girls had this pair and loved them. I personally have these in black and can wear them all night without my feet hurting.
The tropical bouquets they had were all fake from an Etsy shop. I’ve linked her bouquets here but make sure to message her for the tropical vibe. They took a long time to ship (Ireland to US) so order them a few months ahead of time.
Flower Girl:
My flower girl’s dress was made out of scraps from my dress so, in a way, it was a mini version of my dress! In my opinion, it was adorable and I felt like I had a mini-me for the day. In a separate blog post, I’ll go into the details of making my dress instead of buying one, but Livey’s dress cost only $50 to make which was the labor cost since the fabric was already purchased. The top was made with the lace and the bottom was all tulle. The back tied into a bow which allowed her mom, Eryn, the loosen and tighten it to fit her. She really felt like a princess. It was so cute to watch her eyes light up in that dress. Livey joined the girls for “getting ready” photos which I can’t wait to see.
I’ll update this post with photos when I get them back from Ashylnn but here’s the random photos we have from my mom’s phone! Haha I personally took zero photos on my wedding day so I could stay off my phone and live in the moment.
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