“Our Big Fat Italian Greek Wedding” articles are written by Beth Carnevale; a new kind of MOB helping Bridzalina ©moments happen and keeping Bridezilla moments at bay.

 Inspired by Nicolina Carnevale, Bride-to-Be

This article is devoted to us, the MOBs.  I’m sure we have all had our own “Hair raising” experiences with the world of wedding planning so this one’s geared for you to sit back relax  and get some inspiration and straightforward information from the professionals on how to accomplish your MOB hair look for the day.

Brides all know that they should have at least one run-through of their wedding hairstyle. I decided MOB should also take the lead and have my own go around especially for a wedding on as grand of a scale as ours was headed.  “Our Big Fat Italian Greek Wedding” seemed to be getting fatter by the minute. I mentioned this idea of a run-through to Nicolina and to our hair designer who has been doing Nicolina and my hair for many years. Nicolina had already booked the hair stylist for her hair run-throughs to begin six months before the wedding date.  I approached the idea about how she would like to try out some hairstyles on me aka MOB. She was very enthusiastic as she had just returned from Las Vegas for couture hairstyles used on the runway. She had lots of ideas. That’s how it started. In the end, I had four different styles with some variations on how to tone down or leave “couture inspired.”

If you haven’t thought of it already, I would encourage all of you to look in the mirror and envision how you want to look at your daughter’s wedding.  Hair-do You Do is aimed for you!  This is what I learned about hair styling for weddings from Professional Hair Designer Barbra Rae Cataldo, a Redken Master Stylist:

MOB: How do you determine if it is appropriate for a client doing an elaborate couture hairstyle and how do you approach the tone-downed version to create a “real life” hairdo that is appropriate for off the runway? 

Barbra Rae: After taking a class at the Redken Symposium 2011 that focused on inspiration of runway couture styles, I had come up with some creative ideas for our trial runs for Nicolina’s wedding. All the latest trends will always debut on the Runways and Red Carpet, our job is to take inspiration from those styles and come up with creative ways to make them wearable by the everyday woman. And that’s our mission with our trial runs that have been underway.

Make-Up:

MOB: Does make-up play a part in determining a hairstyle?

BarbraRae: Yes, make-up will bring together the “look.” It’s about the entire package. Yes the hairstyle is the focal point but having make-up done will complete the picture.

This helpful information helped me realize I should have a makeup run-through too.

Tips:

MOB: How do you begin working with a Mother of the Bride? And what if any Tips do you have for Mother of the Bride considering a dramatic do? 

BarbraRae: It’s all about the consultation. Personalization is the key to happiness with a hairstyle.   Lifestyle of the client and face shape plays a big part in that. Everyone is different and their hair should be treated that way, doing hair should never become an assembly line. And when considering a Hairstylist for a big event, those are some things that should be sought after when making your decision.

Hairstyles:

MOB: Explain the process of exacting a hairstyle? Does the dress or outfit, neckline, jewelry accessories as well as hair accessories play a role? And what about the time of year of the wedding or setting?

BarbraRae: Once again when tailoring a style for your guest, it’s not only about the style of dress (neckline, etc.); everything should be considered, from the face shape, to lifestyle, to natural hair texture, etc. A thorough consultation is the most important thing when selecting a hairstyle for any event.

Techniques:

MOB: What were the innovative, new or different techniques you used and what should the client bring if anything to a consult? I brought several hair accessories that I thought would work with my dress. Just because you think something will work out DO NOT wait until the day of. With a professional’s expertise, it takes the guess work out. We were able to try all the accessories with different hairstyles and found which ones DID NOT work at all. We were able to see what shortcomings or problems would arise. We found out the actual time the hair styles would take. The hairstylist knew how much time to allow for all wedding party members including the bride to get their hair done. Most important in our case, we knew it was crucial to have an additional hair assistant something we would have never even thought of. With these crucial trials, we could supply the information to our wedding planner to accommodate the day of timeline for scheduling, pictures, etc. A seemingly small piece of the wedding puzzle as hair dos can really set off an unorganized spiral of events if you don’t have everything in place ahead of time. Do not be a basket case the day of your daughter or son’s wedding. We have to have ourselves organized and pulled together so we can calm and guide our brides through their day and make it a heavenly experience.

We learned that if using extra hair, as in extensions or hairpieces, meaning not your own, you want real human hair not artificial. This hair needs to be bought ahead of time and matched to your hair color. It may need to be cut, or colored.  These type of details are  too tedious to wait until the day of the wedding when you have six bridesmaids, a bride, a maid of honor, and flower girl running about waiting to get their hair done as well and you deciding on hair extensions or not.  Remember, real hair extensions can be cut, dyed, washed, dried, and styled using heat tools, fake hair cannot. It is more expensive but the results are realistic and awe inspiring.

BarbraRae: I used handmade hair forms and extension pieces to create the looks we did. I provide all hot tools, pins, products to achieve the desired style. The client should bring any accessories they would like incorporated into the style.

Timeline and appointments:

MOB: How far ahead should members of wedding party book their appointments:

BarbraRae: Clients should book a minimum of four weeks ahead for day of event.  The sooner the client knows the date, the sooner they should book the appointment because the later they wait the more risk they run of not getting the time they need/want. Also sometimes depending on how quickly their stylist books up,  they may not get an appointment the day of their event and you never want to be “squeezed in” the day of a special event, you want the appointment to run smoothly and being rushed is never a good thing for an updo.

Logistics:

Now the logistics of each of your MOB circumstances, plan the following ideas and information ahead of time: 1) Bring pictures of your dress, a swatch is helpful 2) bring in jewelry you will be wearing. 3) Wash your hair ahead of time; we learned that the day ahead is best. It takes too long to wash and dry everyone’s’ hair. Plus we learned that dirtier hair actually works better in up-do type hairstyles. Clean hair is too slippery. You don’t want the bride’s veil slipping off and we don’t want MOB’s with weighed down droopy hair.

MOB predetermined factors:

1) color of my dress 2) style of the wedding, 3) face shape, 4) make-up looks (which will cover whole article on that later), and 5) jewelry accessories would I be wearing silver/white gold, gold, or platinum, stones i.e. Rhinestones, natural stones, colored gems, Would I be wearing a necklace, would I be wearing earrings. Were they posts, dangling/chandeliers?

As with everything for “Our Big Fat Italian Greek Wedding” we started everything early. We wanted as many obstacles in planning to be out of our way by the shower date May 15^th and Nicolina’s May surgical date.  My biggest words of wisdom for this entire process was straightforward from our hairdresser; what we hoped to achieve, what we would need to make it work and then we started increments of haircuts, hair color,  and hair treatments. Our hair designer didn’t just want us to be a one hit wonder.  She was treating the whole head and the whole look. That is what you get with BarbraRae. She looks at the whole process. She determined counting backwards from the shower and wedding dates on when were the best dates to get the haircuts to have optimum length, strength, and healthiness.  Then, the time line started in March about hair color what color did we want to achieve by August. We figured with sunlight and me being in our pool a lot my hair would get lighter naturally. Her job was to control how light it got by not having it too light to begin with. And of course as you know MOBs are bound to have a stray gray hair pop on with wedding planning stress. She figured out how many weeks in between I would need for root touch-ups if needed. That was our plan. I just said I am handing my hair over to you and you decide when, and what processes, we would be doing.

With all the factors involved, it still required a little more work for my final run-through. I was so happy that I did my homework ahead of time. As is our role as MOB, we want to make as little stress the day of the wedding as possible. Having your bride know ahead of time exactly what her MOB will look like and a thorough plan of action of just what is needed to achieve this will give us the confidence to put ourselves on autopilot and get into high gear to help support our Brides with a smooth trip down the aisle.

My bride didn’t think her MOB was behaving over the top.  No, she understood that her MOB wanted to be there to support her little bride whatever arose on the wedding day. She applauded, and coaxed her MOB to be brave trying all the couture styles, even though some were wildly extravagant. She helped me with makeup and accessories and the enduring photo shoot after photo shoot. We shared many laughs with those pics and after all in the end for Nicolina’s sake… “Laughter is the Best Medicine!”