Your wedding day is a magical, once in a lifetime event—of course you want every detail to be just as you’ve been picturing, right down to the perfect hair and makeup. Unfortunately, we know that wedding costs can all add up pretty quickly. If you’re a budget conscious bride and you’re comfortable with makeup application on your own, it can seem like a good idea to simply forgo the expense of a professional makeup artist and handle your wedding makeup yourself. So, does hiring a professional makeup artist really matter, or should save that expense? Here are a few questions to ask yourself before deciding:

In the early part of this millennium, thin brows were de rigeur, and the thinner the better. Now, women everywhere have embraced the thick, bold look of Brooke Shields’ powerful brows. Fashion is cyclical, and makeup even more trend-heavy. Fortunately, going to the bold brow that’s in currently is much easier to recover from than the super-skinny brow. No matter what is currently on-trend for your brows, it’s important to remember that your eyebrows play a big role in framing your face and enhancing your features. So, no matter what the trend, it’s important to always start with the right brow shape for you and modifying from there to follow the trend.

How often have you put on makeup—whether your daily look or something for a special night out—only to look at pictures later and see someone who bears only a passing resemblance to you? The reason this happens goes beyond just the camera taking a three-dimensional figure and creating a two-dimensional image, though that is part of it. The lighting wherever you are and camera’s flash will also have a big impact on how your makeup translates to photos. The light will bounce off the various colors and textures on your skin differently, which is why a photo can make your face look more or less dimensionally developed. If you know you have a photo-heavy event coming up, a session with a professional makeup artist can make all the difference between a flattering photo and a flat face.

There are so many aspects that go into preparing a wedding. There are the flowers to think about, the cake to test, the shoe and costume changes, the bridesmaid’s gowns, the orderves and so much more. While it’s an endlessly entertaining ride, it can seem overwhelming prepping your perfect day so that it’s how you’ve always pictured it. Adding another thing onto that list may seem daunting, but that’s why we’re here to help. Kiss N’ Makeup is passionate about providing coordinated bridal makeup design and thus, we feel we’re qualified to direct you in how best to frame that beautiful canvas that is your face. As you probably know, the dress and the hair for your wedding is a coordinated affair, though we generally suggest choosing a dress before choosing a do. Once you’ve chosen the perfect gown for your wedding day, the hairstyle will fall in line, but that doesn’t mean you won’t need guidance finding the perfect hairstyle to suit your face and the neckline of your gown.

How many times have you seen a BuzzFeed article trying to push you to finally try a chemical peel the day before your wedding for “the best skin ever!!!” Though we’re sure it’ll come as quite a surprise, BuzzFeed should not be your pseudo dermatologist, and applying skin care treatments before your wedding is generally a pretty not-great idea. This is especially true if you’ve already visited Kiss N’ Makeup and we’ve decided upon a look for you. If your skin’s composition changes for some reason due to the procedure, the foundation and products we use on your skin might cause a different result, or worse, a reaction in your skin, and you’ll be noticeably not photo-ready. To avoid this potential wedding-makeup disaster and other wedding beauty foibles, we have a few tips on what beauty treatments you should avoid before your big day to ensure consistent, gorgeous results.

If you’ve ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ve seen the famous scene where the lead character wakes up on her wedding day and has a zit. Panic ensues but the father comes to the rescue and promptly spritzes Windex on the little red spot. In the next scene, she’s on her way to the chapel, and low-and-behold, the pimple has disappeared. Unfortunately, we can’t just spritz a common household cleaner on our faces and hope for the best. Instead, we have to be more prepared than any girl scout has ever been prepared before. So what do you do when an actual beauty disaster befalls you on your wedding day? You turn to the wedding makeup pros at Kiss’ N Makeup and follow our advice carefully.

Looking your best on your special day is going to be slightly complicated. There are many variables in this equation, but if you hire a professional makeup artist that specializes in Bridal makeup, you’re going to be just fine. This is not their first voyage and they’re completely equipped to assist you with pretty much all of your beauty needs, including false lashes and even men’s grooming services, just in case his eyebrows look like they belong on a muppet.

Here at Kiss N’ Makeup, we want your day to go exactly as planned, we want to see the fairy tale come to life with you at the center. Our passion to make your wedding day dreams come true has spurred us to create a coordinated process for our bridal makeup application and appointments.

With all of the planning involved in a wedding, it can be easy to forget about arranging the wedding makeup appointments and figuring out the details, so you can get them just right.

Perfume has the potential to heighten the senses, fill the soul, and imprint a memory onto a smell. It is widely regarded that smells are the most effective memory triggers. Imagine being able to take a sniff of your favorite perfume from your special day and vividly remember the happiness surrounding your wedding like it was yesterday. With a well-chosen fragrance, your wedding day will be as timeless as that amazing scent you rubbed into your pulse points that morning.

Choosing a fragrance that will come to hold so much significance throughout the coming years can seem daunting. Don’t fret—we’ve found that many women are most pleased with a scent that they find to be symbolic already, like a perfume attached to the nuances and beauty of your unique personality. It may seem like a broad swath of scents can represent different portions of your personality on various levels, which is why we’ve devised a guide to help you determine a scent that can fit you best and be rich in beautiful symbolism like a good novel.

Your wedding day is the moment you’ve been dreaming of and designing since you were a little girl. You’ve done research, and you’ve thought-out how the day will proceed. You’ve pictured the setting, the cake, his suit, your hair, and you’ve daydreamed about how your dress will billow in the breeze. It’s a magical moment, something that you’ve built up in your imagination, something you’ll look back on for years. Together, we can make everything exactly how you dreamed it would be, if not slightly better.

Wedding Makeup Basics

Even if you’re a veteran Sephora VIP, you’re bound to have questions about beauty expectations and styles for the wedding day. Since weddings are such a specialized event, it can be hard to decide on what you want and what you need. In the beginning, it’s best to start simple. We’re here to answer those first-stage questions that will start you down the right path to finding the styles and products you need for your big day.

The Skin

Everyone has always pictured themselves as a glowy-skinned bride with a radiant smile and sparkling eyes and beads, and just everything glamorous. While some of those things might not be as important as they seemed when you were five years old, the skin expectation will stick around. How do you even begin to get the glowing skin you’ve always pictured? Start with analyzing the current state of your skin. If you’re suffering from issues like acne or an uneven complexion you should talk to your favorite salon skin care pro at least six months before the big day. If you don’t have a salon you already visit, ask your hairstylist or the lady who you go to for waxes. The cosmetology industry is a tight-knit group and they’ll know who’s the best for the price and the services you need. Book a consultation first and see what they have to say about how they want to go about giving you the glowing, healthy skin we all want. If you’re one of those lovely ladies who are fortunate enough not to suffer from any skin problems, start a facial regimen around two to three months beforehand.

For women, eyebrows are a powerful face shaping mechanism. Where men have facial hair to shape their jawline and overall face shape, women have to rely on their eyebrows. Because of this, tons of trends flood the internet on the daily and deciding what shape best suits you can be an interesting experience. Mainly, because that flood of eyebrow trends and suggestions include things that we might generously refer to as “edgy.” We’ll lay out the do’s and the don’ts of the eyebrow trends of 2017 just as the year wraps up.

Welcome back to our Skin Care First blog series! Starting with a fresh slate is extremely important to how you’re going to apply your makeup and how you’re going to choose products, as well as skin health. Enter exfoliating. We’re sure you’ve seen all kinds of purging products for your skin. However, some of these are just plain bad for your skin and it’s best to leave some extractions to the professionals. But in the meantime, there’s so much you can do to make sure your skin remains fresh and soft.

There are different types: industrial, which is what we’ll call the professional exfoliating services you can purchase, and physical exfoliants, commonly called “face scrubs” and chemical exfoliators.

Welcome to the new “Skin Care First” blog series, the foundation for makeup, is actually not your foundation. It’s your skin, you have to take care of your skin or else your makeup isn’t going to go on right, and it’s not going to bring its a-game to your face.

Your wedding day is arguably the most special day you’ll experience in your life. Every detail is being planned, right down to the type and color of flowers being printed on the place cards. With so many other details to worry about, it’s easy to forget about yourself. After all, you have your dress, your shoes, your veil, and even your hairstyle picked out. But do you have your wedding makeup picked out? We know you’ll have a photographer flitting around all day, capturing every little moment so you can remember them forever. Because of this, it’s understandable that you want to look your best—and your best means looking like you, not like a compilation of this year’s makeup trends. When it comes to choosing your wedding look, your makeup can have a major impact. Here are a few things to consider for the best wedding makeup: