Bridesmaid and Bridal Lip Colours for Summer Weddings

I have just been one of three bridesmaids for my sisters beautiful wedding, a hot topic among us different coloured bridesmaids was an appropriate lip colour for the occasion that would suit us all. My coloring is fair, bridesmaid #2 is also fair but with even paler skin than my own and slightly darker hair, whereas bridesmaid #3 has very dark hair, chocolate button eyes and fair skin.

We decided that it wasn't necessary to look like complete clones of each other when it came to lip colour and it would be better that we tailored our colours to ourselves to look good, rather than a 'one size fits all' that would look 'okay'

For us, red lips and dark lips were a straight up no no...
This is the products we chose from instead, like a lucky dip for lips!

 Here is my artistic angle of the lip products in their tubes, which to be frank is a bit misleading to the colours inside, so I've done a little swatch down here for you too so that you can follow.

The swatches are in the same order as the lip colours in their tubes above
From left to right:
Revlon Just Bitten Balm stain in Honey
MAC lipstick in Lovelorn (what I wore on the day)
Maybelline lipstick in Ultimate Blush
Bare Escentuals Buxom gloss in Kanini
Estee Lauder Pure Colour Lipstick in Crystal Baby
Estee Lauder Pure Colour Lipstick in Pinkberry

The favorites were the Estee Lauders which are truly creamy beautiful colours that are perfect to layer under a gloss. I hand chose these lip colours for their 'Your lips but better' properties that didn't make the lips striking, but made them a wonderful compliment to the rest of the face. The image of 'you but better' is exactly what a bride wants, not to look like a totally different person, but to look like a better version of themselves!

Cheers to kissable lip colours!

Maid of Honour Makeup - Summer Wedding!

I did a few 'practices' of makeup for my sisters wedding this month, which I think is a good idea. I recommend taking a picture too to check that you like how it looks under flash photography. After all, pictures will be the only reminder left of the day so you want to look hawt!

My first trial looked something like this:

I knew that I wanted a very neutral eye and a pinky lip, I ended up using just two eyeshadows, Shroom all over the eyelid and up to the brow bone, and then Folie very gently added to the crease. Then I used a brown eyeliner on the water line for the outer half, and a white eyeliner on the inner half of the waterline. Of course mascara too. On my lips I'm wearing Revlon Lip balm pencil in shade Honey. At this point blusher etc was miscellaneous, and I can see here that my foundation is too light under photography flashes in comparison to my neck.

Here I've made a few revisions! I've got highlighting powder on, eye products are virtually the same and the lipstick I changed to Lovelorn by Mac which I prefer! I think that it gave a more 'pretty' look and made my eyes pop a little more!

The end result is something I'll create a makeup tutorial for you guys to follow, I was wearing a hell of a lot of makeup, but it stayed all day and disguised my blemished skin.
For now, I present to you the pdf that I created for the bridesmaids to follow:

'The' Wedding - round up

It's difficult to put into words what yesterday was like, I'll bore you all to tears if we went through chronologically. But to sum up, it was without a doubt one of the most magical, romantic, understatedly gorgeous, and beautiful weddings that I have ever seen, that includes the ones from the millions many bridal magazines that I may have read in the run up to the big day.

My sister wore a Maggie Sottero gown called Desirae
A veil for the ceremony with diamante detailing around the edge
After the ceremony she swapped the veil for a glitzy headband!

We only have the photographs that people took so far, but hopefully this will give you a good idea of the dress shape and some of the detailing. The back was a tie up, and I had the honour of dressing my sister and pulling her in at the back.
Her hair consisted of three fake hair pieces, a million pins for her hair, and a side swept, curled mermaid loose braid and it was completely stunning. This was the beginning of the 2 hour hair crafting process:

We were so fortunate that the weather was on our side and we were able to have an outdoor ceremony, the bridesmaids, including myself, walked down the aisle before the bride to the harpist playing the wedding march, and it was the moment that fairytale dreams are made of.

It is clear to see that I am beyond excited in this photograph, for so many reasons, the moment, to see friends and family and in anticipation of everyone seeing my beautiful sister!

Our bouquets consisted mostly of white roses, and I'm wearing along with the other bridesmaids a Tiffany Blue gown from Forever Yours, we had an additional strap and flower added to match the brides dress.

I was also very excited to be reading a poem called 'The One' courtesy of Google

We then had the wedding breakfast which was absolutely delightful, followed by brilliant speeches, the cake cutting.. oh the cake, I have to show you this

The cake is from Kays Cakes and she is an absolute delight to work with, she also made my sisters 21st birthday cake and was just as amazing then.

I caught the wedding bouquet which was one of my personal highlights! It was so fun, although I felt very greedy as I already had a beautiful bouquet of my own! I also had some war wounds from catching the flowers which I'm still nursing.

In the evening we had a brilliant band come and play for us, they stayed all night and kept us all busy and dancing, and for the first time I felt like I could thoroughly relax and enjoy the night and not worry about running around after the bride! And finally, for the guest book, we had a photo booth which was hilarious and wonderful fun.

Not too long after midnight, I was completely partied out and ready for my first proper nights sleep in days!
I had to be persuaded to get out of my dress as I was in a bit of refusal to remove it, and I have still kept my hair in! I'm clinging onto the day as much as I can!

What I didn't expect to be doing tonight...

Tonight is the night before my sisters long awaited wedding, yes it has finally come around!
To say that I am nervous and bursting with excitement is an understatement!
I won't be able to blog tomorrow and I hope that you'll forgive me for that! We are away from home for the night, but I'll be back the next day with some casual snaps before the real ones come through.
In the mean time, I've been repairing sweetie trees that have been made with cement, cocktail sticks and so many packs of chocolates that I am almost sick of the sight of them.

Nonetheless, they are packaged up hopefully for a safe 30 mile trip to the venue!

Sweet, sweet, sweetie dreams lovebugs! Wish us lots of luck and sunshine!

Bridesmaid Summer Wedding Manicure

As my sisters wedding is fast approaching, it's about time I tied all those little loose ends of jobs together. A few days before the wedding like today, made it the perfect day to test out what colour to wear on my nails, I've finally settled on Princesses Rule! By OPI
My advice when deciding what polish to wear is to do a little trial run, if it's between two colours, paint a different colour on each hand then hold the (dry) nails against the outfit that you are wearing to see which colour looks best!
I am wearing a bridesmaid dress that is a block colour, and I've decided these look the most feminine, and understatedly pretty when held against the dress!

It looks like subtle pink sparkle with one coat, but I ended up building it up to three coats to create a more opaque glitter finish. As for lasting, it leaves a lot to be desired, it will only look good for about one day and dents easily too. Here I've worn the colour for three days and the tops are all chipped and that was with a strengthening top coat, so be aware of that going into this. However, it looked neat and fresh for all of one day which is how long weddings last!

Wedding Day Trial Makeup

Today was a super special today as my sister and I went for a makeup trial for her wedding day!
She went along with a picture courtesy of Pinterest and added our own little twist to it. This is all I'm able to share of the look at this stage:

It looks like I've made my sister into some kind of voodoo doll, I hope you like the Tippex style hearts!
We came home and made our own amendments to this look including a brow colour, different lashes, different eyeliner, different lip colour, adding some highlighting dust etc.

That's your little peek! We are going for a dress fitting tomorrow but I can't even risk a little peek at this because it's simply too special!

On another note- my sister made me the most wonderful cheese on toast I have ever had! It looks like something you might get in a restaurant!

Blue Wedding!

Today was a frantic rush of getting ready, I was so excited for this wedding that I hadn't slept very well for a few nights running up to it.
I got my hair done in the morning which took some of the pressure off, my hair-spiration came from Pinterest:

but I did my own makeup which was a neutral eye using the Urban Decay Vice palette - I forgot my Naked Palette and only had my Vice at home but luckily there were a few neutral gems in there which made it work out okay!
I did a bright bold red lip too video to follow, and then I had to do my sisters makeup too!
My sister is wearing a purple dress so wanted makeup to match, I found this:

From Pinterest of course...
and delved into the Urban Decay Vice palette and it had the perfect colours to recreate this

Here's how we turned out and then I will give an outfit break down!

My sister breakdown:
Purple dress from Karen Millen
Nude shoes from.. New Look or Next Probably
Makeup- me!

My breakdown:

Nautical dress from a boutique but I think I saw the same design at Blue Banana

Red Heels eBay - £10! (new, from an eBay shop)

Beaded clutch- Present from my sister from Debenhams about 5 years ago!

I did get some comments that it looked like I was wearing fancy dress- but I didn't care I love nautical-ness!

Us with the bride!

I wasn't sure if she'd appreciate her picture being put anywhere other than her Facebook, so I covered her face in hearts, just to be certain that it wouldn't be disrespectful to the privacy of her special day!

Her dress was completely stunning and breathtaking! It had lace all over and the train was beauitful and sort of scalloped! It was divine! I really want to try it on! The day was really lovely and the speeches were so funny - speeches are usually boring but these were not, although it probably helps when you know the bride very well!

It was also really nice to be with all my nearest and dearest all in once place, this hardly ever happens, not even at Christmas! 

The side effect is that it has just made me even more nervous and excited about my sisters wedding this Summer!

Wedding Cake!

You may or may not have heard from my million of previous posts on the matter that my sister is getting married this year. It is of course super exciting, but I keep having little mini meltdowns when I remember the things that I still need to sort out (and I'm not even the bride!)

I'll be so ecstatic when I can share the day with you guys via real photographs but for now here is a sneak peek of the sketch of the cake!
I don't want to give it all away because that might ruin it for the bride... but I will tell you that the bottom layer is fruit cake, the middle is sponge and the top is chocolate!

Hens making a getaway!

My sisters wedding is approaching this year and to say I am excited is something of an understatement!

The bridesmaids and I decided that it would be fun to have a 'pre-hen' with just the bridesmaids before the actual hen!

At first we wanted to get a weekend away in the sunshine before the big day, but more realistically settled on a spa break!

We had a bridesmaid meeting today which was a great time to duscuss crucial questions such as:

What order do the bridesmaids go in the aisle procession?

Do you eat lamb?

Where are we going to have a 'pre-hen' before the hen?

I wore my hair in loose curls today, with a knit scarf, leather jacket and a Disney jumper.

My makeup is the Naked 2 palette and on my lips I'm wearing lipstic Frozen Rose by Avon with 'Lipcote' over the top. Lipcote arrived through the post today and I'm not super impressed, I'm going to give it another chance though before I confirm that it's not a vey good product.

Flower girls.. awhh

Here's a little update on the latest with my sisters wedding and it's to do with the cutests members of the wedding party- the flower girls.

we've done some browsing over the past few months for flower girls dresses off the rail but my sister knew that above all she wanted the dress to be cute and childish looking, not like a minature adult dress. This included a cute ribbon/bow or flowers and little cap sleeves. Surprisingly most flower girl dresses seem to have no sleeves at all, to find one with little cap sleeves was unusual or they were usually first holy communion dresses.

Then I came across this pretty dress in a pattern book and it captured my imagination, I love the pretty little ruffle flowers and sleeve type and on the back it has a cute little ribbon too!

I took a picture of it and sent it to my sister who agreed that it was the prettiest flower girl dress we had ever seen, so I got the paper pattern and now this is the dress-to-be... but not in pink!

Isn't it so lovable?

It was a child Vogue pattern and it had 40% off so cost the sweet price of £4.95!

Sailor dress up!

Ever since my first dress-up party at the age of 12 or 13 when I went as a sailor girl, I have had a 'thing' for all things nautical that never ever seems to go away, ever! As much as I wish I could wear my costumes out on a regular day (I built up a collection of various sailor ones) they remain in waiting for another dress up party!

Keeping this in mind, you can imagine how my heart skipped a beat with joy when I feasted my eyes upon this lovely dreamy-dress!










The lady at the counter probably thought I was a sailor-crazy-nut as I was wearing coincidentally my sailor jumper today!

I think I'm going to save the dress for a March wedding and team it up with Red heels with a bow! But I don't know if I can wait that long to wear it...

Other lovely things I came across today that came home with me included this new 'dressy' top, originally from Topshop but I got it in a second hand shop for a sweet price of £10

P.S note how I've cropped my face out of everything because I was having a 'bad skin-no makeup' day
And a little more boring... a new laundry bag, but the print is super cute at least!

I'm gon' be a bridesmaid!

I've posted more than once about my sister getting married next year!

_-~* Insert my gushing face!*~-_

Since 'the dress' has already been purchased, now we can move onto 'the other important dress' which is that of the bridesmaids!

Today was day 1 of many in terms of shopping, we're looking at the dresses in the American brand 'Forever Yours' they do very stereotypically 'American' bridesmaid and flower girl dresses if that makes sense?

I guess I mean the styles, the cheesy green screen backdrops of some of the photo shoots too!

Here's the initial dress that we thought would be 'the one' or 'the other one' haha but not this colour.

Tried on it lookes different, and we just didn't love it as much as the picture, also in the shop it was in a candyfloss pink colour so I felt like a candy floss-ballerina-fairy type thing, not a sophisticated and chic bridesmaid...

The search continues!

Here's a look at the ones I was trying on today:

Guess if you can!



It's a nice day for a white wedding

Today I went to a family friends wedding, I've had a music note dress on standby for a very long time for this special day and I found a keyboard purse in the ASOS sale to coordinate plus shoes I got from ebay a very long time ago
My outfit breakdown goes like this:
Dress Topshop was £75 but I got it from ebay for £6
Purse ASOS sale was £25 but int he sale it was £12.50
Shoes ebay, not branded and £10

Makeup went a little something like this...
Laura Mercier Moisturising foundation
Bobbi Brown Bronzing brick for abit of shimmer and a MAC matte bronzer to carve out those cheekbones and slim the face
Blusher by MAC in shade Well Dressed
Highlighting powder by MAC in Snowglobe (from the christmas range)
Lipstick by MAC in shade Lovelorn
Lipgloss by MAC in shade Pretty Plush
Eyebrows filled in with Folie eyeshadow by MAC
Eyes went a little like this:
Eye Primer by Bare Escentuals
Eyeshadow all over the eyelid in shade Shroom by MAC
Champagne golden eyeshadow from this fun Bed Head pallette over Shroom
Eyeshadow in shade Folie by Mac in the crease and blended to keep it fresh and pretty
The bottom eyeshadow in the bedhead pallette which is like a paler version of MAC's Mulch goes over the top of Folie to make it a little more shimmery
Use an eyeliner brush and take Folie along the top lashline
Shroom by MAC on the browbone as a highlight
White eyeliner along the waterline I used Fascinating by MAC
Black Mascara mine was from Bare Escentuals

Then finally, a spritz of MAC Fix plus all over the face to keep it on all day!

And all that remainds of the day!

I love keeping my name place settings of the weddings that I go to, just looking at it will reminds me of the colour scheme, theme, setting and the day so I think it deserves a place in the magical scrapbook which is a hobby I am determined to keep!

Wedding dress shopping...Round 2!

If you've read my blog before you may know that my sister is getting married next year!
We've been looking for dresses for a long time and there isn't many styles that she doesn't suit which has made it extra tricky!

Sometimes bridal shops are funny about taking pictures and although they didn't outright say anything against it I took a few sneaky shots of potential dresses-to-be!

It was a whirlwind of silk and taffeta and gems and petticoats and fairytale dreamy happiness!

In the end we've decided between two dresses so we're going for a third, and maybe final browsing in a couple weeks!

And neither of the two has been photographed, it will be a complete fairytale surprise!

Pinterest Spamterest

Pinterest is a great ol' hub of creativity mixing together, if you are a bride to be then you need to make your way over to Pinterest.com for every creative, beautiful, money saving, romance making, awe inducing creations, themes, colour schemes, locations and dresses from the most stylish and savvy brides of the world!

I have created seperate virtual pin boards for clothes from my dreams, places I thought were only in fantasy lands, foods that are so pretty I want to coat them in a clear preserve to look at them forever and other boards just to collect all the crazy and outlandish world statistics that I never knew about and others are there to gather the craft projects of my dreams, I wish we didn't need to always be in the real world and going to the places that we have to go to like work and school and instead we could have months of empty time just to make and stick and stitch and paint.

Just lately though my boards have been corrupted by spam, I don't even know how it could have happened but my account has just given birth to brand new boards all by itself titled completely lame things like 'The best paid jobs in the US' ... i don't even live in the US- that's not something that I would put on my lovely array of pin boards! And the more I delete it, more boards seem to spring up that I didn't even create!
I just hope if i keep reporting it, it will go away but I won't let it plague my oasis of favourite things on my pin boards.
Here are some of my favourites!

www.pinterest.com/alexiaesque