This month, I will be celebrating my first wedding anniversary! I can't believe it's already been a year. To celebrate, I will be doing a wedding series to share a few tips and tricks I learned while planning my wedding. In this first installment of the series, I'm sharing how to choose a wedding day hairstyle and makeup look. During my search for inspiration, I needed to see photos of people who looked like me with hair like mine hence this post - wedding day hair and makeup for black women. I do hope that these tips help you (or a friend or family member). Enjoy. For more wedding planning tips, watched this video my husband and I created about how we planned our wedding in six months. Now here are my wedding day hair and makeup tips.

Gather and Save Makeup and Hair Style Inspiration

Before I made the final decision regarding my wedding hair and makeup, I spent a lot of time finding and saving photos of hairstyles and makeup that I liked. I created a wedding hair and makeup inspiration Pinterest Board solely to save these photos. Thanks to Instagram, Pinterest and Munaluchi Bride (a multicultural wedding website) finding inspiration was relatively easy. Over time, I noticed that the photos I saved had a particular feel. I wanted simple elegance mixed with glam. With that in mind, it was time to choose my wedding beauty look.

Choose your Wedding Day Hair and Makeup

For my wedding day hair, I narrowed down my choices to styles that I thought would flatter my face. After all, we all want to look great on our wedding day! I wore my hair in a short pixie for a number of years and knew that short hair flattered me, so I decided to go short for my wedding day. Plus the short style worked with my wedding dress, accessories and overall theme of my wedding. For my makeup, I opted for an "elegant glam" look. After viewing my makeup artist's portfolio, I knew exactly the look I wanted on my special day.

Choose a Hair Stylist and a Makeup Artist

Hair Stylist

Some people are talented and do their own hair and makeup on their wedding day. For me, I called the professionals. I had a prior relationship with the stylist who styled my hair for my wedding. She styled my hair before, and I trusted her. While she was not available to style my hair on my wedding day, I made arrangements for her to do my hair the day before my wedding and my cousins freshened up my style on my wedding day. Availability is key in booking a stylist. Also, speak about pricing to ensure that it works with your budget.

Makeup Artist

I found my makeup artist via Munaluchi Bridal website. I used Munaluchi Bridal to search because I wanted a makeup artist relatively close to my wedding day venue who also had experience doing wedding makeup on brown skin. The website pointed me to my makeup artist's Instagram portfolio, a short portfolio view and I was hooked! Her makeup artistry vibed with what I wanted on my wedding day. While everyone told me to do a makeup trial, I did not. Luckily, it worked out well for me. I felt good about booking her based on her friendliness and professionalism when I reached out and her reviews and reputation (I also chose my bridesmaids' makeup artist based on her reputation because one of my bridesmaids worked with her previously). A few of the vendors I was working with knew her and spoke highly of her work. Nevertheless, many people advise brides-to-be to do a trial so there're no surprises on the wedding day.

Work Out a Wedding Day Timeline

Now that you've chosen your wedding day beauty team, work out a wedding day timetable with your hair stylist and makeup artist so that everyone can work together to ensure things go seamlessly on your wedding day.

Cheers,
~Nika