A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of styling bride Laura’s hair for her beautiful Spring wedding. We wanted to share with our clients her answers to some questions we thought would be helpful for any bride-to-be; here are her responses:
First things first, congratulations on getting married! We are sure you are super excited and happy to be the new Mrs. Adam Miles! Lulu & Bass wants to thank you for selecting our agency and stylist to be your trusted hair experts for your wedding day.
How did you decide on a location? With all the options in San Diego for a Spring wedding, why Poway? Did Maderas do anything special that made them your go-to choice? Any sentimental emotions connected to the Rancho Bernardo Inn?
I lived in San Diego from the time I was born until I left for college, and then moved back after college. My best memories are all of the years that I lived in Poway. My parents still live there, so I visit a lot. When it came time to look for wedding venues, we did look at some more coastal locations, but ultimately I couldn’t deny that Poway will always have part of my heart. I had volunteered at a fundraiser at Maderas when I was in high school, so I already knew the location was beautiful. When I brought my husband to the golf course, he immediately fell in love with it too. The venue is secluded in the hills of Poway with a picturesque view of the mountains. The golf course is lush and beautifully maintained and there was no doubt, on day two of our venue search, that we had found our spot!
One of the huge perks of having our wedding at Maderas is their site coordinator. She is very organized and willing to bend over backwards to make sure that all of our questions were answered and our needs were met. Another one of the huge benefits is that Maderas has a lot of in-house amenities. They provide food and bar services, tables and chairs, linens, and most of the basics needed to create the foundation of your wedding. When you work full time and don’t have all the time in the world to plan your wedding, that kind of thing becomes really important to making the wedding planning process as stress-free as possible.
What did you look for when hiring a photographer? Anything in particular that Melissa McClure represented that others you interviewed didn’t?
Finding a photographer was one of the hardest parts that I had with finding our wedding vendors. I didn’t really know how to look for a photographer and how to tell one apart from another. I told myself that I wanted a photographer who had a modern sense of style with clean lines, so that’s how we found our engagement photographer. When I wasn’t completely satisfied with those photos, I realized that I had left out part of the equation: that you really need to have a connection with the face behind the camera in order to have that person genuinely capture personal moments and feelings on the biggest day of your life. I reached out to Melissa McClure because she had taken beautiful photos of my friend’s wedding a few years back, so I knew she would be up for the job. We chatted over email at first and I felt like she had become my friend before I even met her in person. That was so important to me because it allowed me to be very comfortable when she took our wedding photos. She laughed with me and made it seem like it was just a regular day for me. Photos make me so nervous, so I really appreciated that. I also decided to do a boudoir session with her before the wedding, which helped me to feel more confident about myself and my body than I have felt in a long time as well as to be very comfortable in front of her camera on our wedding day, given that she had already seen me half naked!
What was your overall thought about your wedding? Were a little girl who has dreamt her whole life for this one day or were you someone who figured it all out when the time came?
I was ecstatic about how well everything turned out! I agonized over almost every decision I made along the way- I love to second guess myself. So when nothing went hugely wrong on the actual day, I was almost in shock. I don’t know if I would be considered the little girl who always dreamt of this day. I knew I wanted to get married, but until I met my husband I really never envisioned anything about this day. I think that made it even more special for us, because every aspect of our wedding had to do with the two of us and what we knew would make both of us happy. I never would have imagined that my wedding would be at a golf course in a ruffley dress, but some choices just made more sense because of who I was marrying.
What would you say the “style” or “look” of your wedding was? How did you choose a theme? Was Adam an active participant?
I never really established a theme. I have a terrible eye for how to put things together and make them look good, so I very much relied on the opinions of my stylish friend and my vendors in order to pull this off. What we ended up with was a lot of gold and champagne throughout our reception with pops of different shades of pink from our florals. And a LOT of mercury glass candles and vases. I am obsessed with anything silver or gold and sparkly. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to show off my girly side in my everyday life, so I wanted to get my fill of pink and sparkles without being overly feminine. I’d like to think I ended up with a pretty good balance of all of those things.
Adam was about as involved in the wedding planning as the standard man is or wants to be. He would give me opinions when I asked and came with me to any appointments where he would have something to do (aka food tasting, cake tasting, and meeting with the DJ). Otherwise, he gave me a lot of freedom and space to make this wedding exactly what I knew would be the best for both of us. He also took over on the DIY component of the wedding (making confetti poppers) when I got too frustrated to keep working on them. That project nearly sent me over the edge, so I’m very glad that he was sweet enough to take that off of my plate.
What did you envision for your hair and makeup for your wedding day? How did you select Lourdes from Lulu & Bass as your hair stylist? What was the feeling you had when working with Lourdes?
I always knew that I would want some sort of hairstyle that had a lot of curls involved. That made it easy for me to choose Lourdes, because so much of her portfolio has beautifully polished curls on ladies with gorgeous long hair, so I figured she would be able to tame my crazy frizzy hair. Since I have long hair, and a lot of it, I thought it would be nice to have my hair at least partway down. When I did my trial with Lourdes and on my wedding day, she seemed to have a vision of what would look best for my hair and the end product was beautiful both times! She even encouraged me to find a fun hair accessory to incorporate, which she put in my hair sideways (I had assumed it would go in across the center back of my head), and it looked amazing and so stylish! I love that I could trust her to know exactly what to do with my hair.
Describe your floral selection. How did your hair, makeup, wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses and groomsmen suits tie altogether? Did what you envisioned come to life on your wedding day?
The flowers were one of my favorite parts of our wedding. I had originally told the florist that I wanted very neutral ivory and blush flowers with no greenery to keep that neutral bridal look. Once I realized that the flowers would be the thing that added color and beauty to our wedding, I told the florist to have some creative freedom with the types of flowers, the colors, and the style of the arrangements. I asked her to incorporate as many shades of pink and peach as she wanted to and just about every type of flower she wanted as well. Since our wedding was in hot and dry Poway, we even added some succulents to the bouquets, arrangements, and boutonnieres. I love the textures and colors that this combination brought to our wedding. I felt that my dress, the blush knee-length bridesmaid dresses, our feminine hairstyles and makeup, and the flowers each had a very spring/garden/outdoor wedding look to them, and I love how they all looked when they were put together. Since I’m more detail oriented than big-picture oriented, I really never imagined how great all of these things would look together but I’m so happy with how everything turned out.
How did you and Adam decide on music for your reception? What did the DJ bring to the table (pun intended 😉 ) that no one else did? Can you describe the importance of the songs chosen?
Music was another tough thing for us to figure out! This is another time where we got very lucky with our DJ. When we had our final meeting with him the week before the wedding, he let us know that there were still a few song selections missing for key moments during the night, and we really hadn’t chosen many songs to play during the reception, so we mostly trusted him to choose the music that would keep our guests the happiest throughout the night. And we requested a few Pitbull songs wherever possible, because who doesn’t want to dance when they hear Pitbull??
Our DJ did something that I had asked him not to do… and I am very glad he did. He played some oldies after we had pretty much settled on playing current top hits, and when I asked him about it during our wedding he told me that there were quite a lot more guests dancing to the oldies than the modern songs. The moral of that story is that I had to trust him to feel out the energy of our guests and know what to do with them. He did a great job of keeping the energy up throughout the night and knowing when to play particular types of songs.
If you could give any advice for brides-to-be what would it be?
My biggest advice is something that I have a lot of trouble following myself. Take time throughout your engagement and wedding planning process to relax! Don’t schedule too many meetings on one day and don’t obsess over tiny details. At the end of the day you are the only one who will remember if all of the napkins matched each other, if you wore the perfect wedding shoes (I ditched my heels for flip flops before the ceremony even started, and I am SO happy I did that!), or if your flowers were the exact type that you had expected. Take time to see the positives in your wedding planning and find ways to use it as a reason to spend more time than usual with your family and friends during this fun time. It goes by so fast!
At Lulu & Bass we love nothing more than hearing client responses to our wonderful work. We know that we enjoy working with our clients as much as they enjoy working with us. We truly believe we are San Diego’s premier wedding agency and we hope any bride-to-be reading this blog finds our work to be just as spectacular as other clients have. Please contact us to schedule your trial wedding hairstyle for your Spring or Summer San Diego wedding!