Saturday, January 28, 2012

Can You Feel the Love Tonight: Doing the 'Do

After decorating the reception, I rushed back to the hotel to get my hair done.

I am very lucky to have an aunt who is a hair dresser.  My life has been filled with high-class haircuts done about as cheaply as SuperCuts.  In fact, I've hardly ever had another person touch my hair, leaving me nervous about surrendering its care to anyone I don't know.  Given that, there was never any question about who I wanted to do my hair for my wedding, and my aunt very graciously took time out of her San Francisco vacation to do it for free.

Since she lives in Long Beach (nearly 400 miles from our venue), we didn't get to do a hair trial beforehand.  I was kind of nervous about that, but we emailed extensively, so she knew what I was looking for.  I spent hours scouring the internet for the perfect pictures, and came up with this:


This was pretty much exactly what I wanted.  Structured yet loose.  Curly but flowing.  Half up, half down.  Elegant with a splash of freedom.  And the orchids made it perfect.

But as with any anal bride, there were some things I had to change.  The pieces in the front wouldn't work for me, so I would curl them instead.  And my hair is significantly longer than hers, so I needed some extra curl on the "down" half.  And so the internet provided me with further inspiration:



You get the idea:  top half like Picture #1, bottom half curly and wavy.

My hair was supposed to take about an hour.  It took almost two.  I have a lot of hair.

When we started, I was still feeling pretty anxious about getting everything done in time (which as it turned out was totally justified, but we'll get there later).  As I sat in my parents' hotel room, my aunt curling my hair, me trying desperately to hydrate myself before I got stuck in my dress, I was definitely on edge.  I think everyone else in the room was trying to calm me down, but I was too up in my head to notice.

Unless otherwise noted, the photos are courtesy of Stephen Cheng Photography.

 My Aunt, My Hair, and My Hydration Attempt

 They actually had to tell me to smile.  Remind me that I need to go into therapy now that I have time.

My Uncle Capturing the Moment

After looking at load after load of wedding porn on various blogs, I was expecting to have this time to talk with my bridesmaids, but the layout of my parents' room didn't really allow us to get ready together.  I was a little sad about that, but I did get to spend some time with my parents at least.

 Groomslady Getting Ready

 Bridesmaids Getting Ready

 My Bro Getting Shaved by His Girlfriend :)

 My Concerned Family Wondering What the Heck Is Wrong with Me

The photographer and I got acquainted too.  He actually did more to calm me down than anyone else, something I was definitely grateful for.

While I was getting my hair done, everyone else was busy too.  Besides getting ready themselves, our Flower Goddess Julia was fixing our dying arrangements (my parents actually had to go find a florist to get her more hydrangea to replace the ones we accidentally froze), my dad lead the charge on breaking up rose heads for the aisle petals, someone had the good sense to go get us some lunch, and people intermittently tried to talk to me (i.e. make me relax).

 Julia Saving the Flowers

 My Finished Bouquet :D

My MOH Had All the Best Pictures

My Dad and Uncle Breaking up Flowers

Even the Photographer Helped!  So Nice!
I was busy too.  While waiting for my hair to be finished, I went over a bunch of plans with everyone present.  About an hour before we were supposed to be at our make-up appointment, I got a less-than-unexpected and highly worrisome call from Sephora.  I had called earlier in the week to go over details, and they had gotten confused and thought all of us were getting our make-up done separately starting an hour before we planned to get there.  I quickly grabbed back my phone (which I had entrusted to my MOH, trying to avoid this sort of crap), screamed them into submission, told them I didn't care if they had other appointments because I had confirmed our noon appointment and it was my wedding day damnit!, and told them they were going to make it work!  When I hung up, everyone in the room was starting at me.

I'm usually a pretty passive, kind, quiet person, and my friends and family had never seen me act like that before.  Now, this wasn't entirely because of the wedding.  I have my way with billing departments more often than I care to think about, but they had never seen it and left the experience torn between admiration and fear.  My mom has been telling me I should be a CEO since August 14th, and I'm pretty sure this is the phone call that gave her the idea.

Anyway, everyone got a kick out of it.

Finally, my hair was done, and it was time to run to Sephora because we were totally going to be late to the make-up appointment I had just insisted had to be done on time.

I was in such a rush that I didn't think to get pictures of my finished hair.  Fortunately, I can cobble together an image from the other pictures we got that day.





It wasn't exactly the way I pictured it.  It was better.  My aunt did an amazing job, and I am so grateful that she took an entire day away from her planned vacation to make my hair awesome!

How was your wedding morning?  Was it the way you pictured?  Did anything unexpected happen while you were getting ready?

2 comments:

  1. you look gorgeous!! i am glad everything worked out with hair and makeup, i know that can be a stressful time for many brides. i was blessed the day of our wedding because everything fell into place nicely but that didn't stop me being worried about the time & being late. Once i took the time to breathe and soak it all in i was able to really enjoy the process of becoming a Bride.

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  2. I didn't know your aunt did it -- I thought it was done somewhere like at Sephora! It was gorgeous. And I love your photographer; that was so sweet of him. :)

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