Getting Ready on Your Wedding Day

The morning of my wedding day was filled with so many emotions. It is exciting seeing all your wedding planning come together and it’s also chaotic since you have to make sure you stick to a time schedule so you don’t run late. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed! To feel as relaxed as possible, it’s important to plan out all that goes into the morning of your wedding. I’d like to share some tips and advice for getting ready on your big day and the details of my wedding day. There are a lot of things to consider for the morning of your wedding day. Where are you sleeping the night before? Where will you be getting ready? What time should everyone be done with hair and makeup? How am I getting to the venue? These are some of the questions to think about.

Decide Where You Want to Get Ready

There are different options on where you can get ready on your wedding day. You can get ready at home, at a hotel, or in your venue’s bridal suite. There are a lot of things to consider such as cost, location, comfort, etc. It’s completely up to you and your preference! We live an hour away from our venue and I didn’t want to worry about traffic so I decided to get ready at the bridal suite. We stayed at a nearby hotel the night before and took a shuttle to the venue in the morning.

Plan Out a Time Schedule

Once your ceremony time has been decided, I suggest speaking with your photographer to see when they want everyone to be ready with hair and makeup. You will want to have enough time to take “getting ready shots” in your robe with you and the bridal party and photos of everyone all dressed up. You will also want to factor in if you want to have a first look and take any other photos before the ceremony.

Once that time is determined, it is important to talk to your hair and makeup stylists to let them know when everyone needs to be ready. They will work with you to figure out when the best time is to start hair and makeup. To give you an idea, makeup is usually takes around 30 minutes per person and hair is 30 minutes per person for the bridal party and around an hour for the bride depending on your look. The start time to get ready totally depends on the number of people in your bridal party. When you are done creating a morning timeline, don’t forget to communicate with your bridal party and family what the plans are so everyone is on the same page and knows what to expect.

For my wedding, we had a super early start! In November, the sunset is around 5pm and since we wanted an outdoor ceremony, we had a 3:30pm ceremony start time. We also decided on doing a first look, which was scheduled for noon. My bridesmaids and I had to be done with hair and makeup by 11 to give us enough time to take getting ready photos, change into our dresses, and take photos with us all dressed up. Since it was me, my mother, and my six bridesmaids doing hair and makeup, we had to start at 6am to give us enough time. My hair stylist and makeup stylist were so flexible and easy to work with for coming up with a schedule! They came to our hotel at 6am to start on a few of us and then we got to the venue at 8am to finish getting ready and hang out in the bridal suite. Even though we had to get up super early, it made me feel at ease knowing we gave ourselves plenty of time to get ready.

Get a Good Night’s Rest

I know it’s the night before your big day so it’s hard to feel relaxed lol but make sure you go to sleep early so you can wake up feeling refreshed and energized on your big day.

Don’t Forget to Eat and Stay Hydrated

Make sure you eat something before the wedding and drink lots of water to stay hydrated. I had no appetite because of all the nerves, but I made sure to drink a lot of water and eat plain and simple foods so I wouldn’t upset my stomach. Since I got ready in the bridal suite, the venue prepared breakfast, lunch, and snacks for us.

Enjoy the Moment

After all the stressful planning, you deserve all the pampering. Try to relax and enjoy! Play your favorite songs and have fun! You are marrying the love of your life and it’s such a special day! Enjoy every moment of it!

Wedding Day Accessories

Lay out your dress and have all your accessories ready to go the night before so you don’t forget anything. Some of the accessories you will need for your wedding are a getting ready outfit (this can be a robe, pajamas, etc), slippers, hanger for your wedding dress, veil, undergarments, garter, shoes, jewelry, head jewelry piece + hair extensions (depending on hair style), purse, etc. Also, don’t forget your engagement ring and wedding bands! And for the detail shots, you can bring a copy of your wedding invitation and anything else that you want included in the photo.

Here are the links to all my wedding accessories:

Bride Hanger

Bride Robe + Slippers

Earrings

Bracelet

Flower Vine Headpiece

Shoes

Clutch

Wedding Bands + Engagement Ring

Wedding Invitation

Groom’s Wedding Morning

It’s also funny how the morning is completely different for the guys! Carl and his groomsmen hung out in the groomsmen lounge and got to play lawn games. Guys are lucky that they don’t have to spend hours getting ready haha! Here are a few cute pictures of Carl’s morning.