It would be much cooler of me to pretend that I was pretty blasé about my wedding, but I must confess I’ve been day-dreaming about it since I was a little girl (with the nearly decade’s old Pinterest boards as additional evidence to this fact). And as someone who writes about beauty for a living, my pre-wedding beauty routine came front of mind almost immediately after getting engaged. So I thought I’d document a little of said routine for other like-minded, beauty obsessed brides. If I were to cover every aspect of my wedding plans it would rival a university thesis in length and arguably depth, so I’m restricting myself to three specific but highly important aspects of my wedding prep: skin, supplements, body, nails, and teeth.
Our wedding was actually in early February 2020, but I’ve held off chatting about my pre-nuptial beauty preparation until now because it didn’t feel right. We were so, so unbelievably lucky with our timing that I feel guilty thinking about it – had our wedding been even a couple of weeks later, we’d probably have had to reschedule like so many couples have had to, or if not, at least significantly alter our plans. We got married in my hometown of Perth, and my husband is French and many of our family and friends live interstate and overseas, so it was a true joy to be able to celebrate with all our loved ones who came from afar, and whom we probably won’t be able to see again for the foreseeable future.
SKIN
I’m pretty diligent with my skincare routine, but I complemented my at-home regime with a couple of skin-boosting treatments in preparation for the wedding. A few months out I tried the Hydrafacial at in West Perth, which involves a thorough exfoliation followed by infusing the skin with seriously hydrating peptides and hyaluronic acid. My skin is quite sensitive, but it immediately looked glowing and plumped, so I was hooked. I rebooked for a week before the wedding itself because I was comfortable that it truly had zero downtime, but I could have probably afforded to schedule it even closer to the day for maximum luminosity.
NAILS
I had a very specific idea in mind when it came to how I wanted my nails on my wedding: very lowkey, very subtle, ‘no-nail-polish nail polish’, if you will. I’d always loved the timelessness of the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding manicure (which was supposedly a combo of Bourjois’s Rose Lounge and Essie’s Allure shades) and asked the salon to aim for the closest they could get to that look, but in gels. Had I gotten married in Sydney, I would have opted for where the clever therapists mix together a bespoke combination of polishes to craft the most natural and flattering nude shade for your skin tone. I treated myself to one before my engagement party and adored it – my custom combo, by the way, was a blend of
TEETH
Getting my teeth whitened was a must-do for me, and I opted for as and had loved the results. A small word of warning: if you weren’t aware, you need to steer clear of all foods and drinks that aren’t clear for 48 hours, so make sure you factor this into your social calendar: I’d suggest having the treatment no more than a week before the big day, and those pre-wedding days tend to be filled with celebratory meals with family and friends, so I suggest you keep this in mind. But you’ll be happy to know that champagne is on the ‘okay to consume’ list, thank goodness.
