How to Do Your Own Wedding Make-Up

While beauty and MUAs are now available to work after further loosening of restrictions due to COVID-19, some brides may find themselves feeling more comfortable with doing their own make up for their wedding day. 

To help you achieve this, we have compiled an easy-to follow guide with tips and tricks to achieve that perfect, photo-friendly make up look that will last you all day long, no matter how much you dance the night away.

Perfecting The Base

Make up will last longer and appear smoother when you use a good emollient to create a hydrated and ‘tacky’ surface for your foundation-base to stick to. Our favourites are Embryolisse Lait-Creme Concentre, or Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Cream. Dab a few over the face and use your fingers to absorb. Prefer to use a make up brush? Grab a stippling brush and use circular motions to absorb over face before allowing to penetrate for a good ten minutes or so before applying your foundation.

Long-lasting Foundation

I am now obsessed with finding the right foundation that gives me that all over cover but also a nice dewy look. Wedding MUAs have this at the ready in their kit, and you can’t go wrong with NARS Naturally Radiant Longwear Foundation. Best tip is to really blend this into the skin, either using a moist BeautyBlender or a flat foundation brush (we love this one from Tom Ford).

Ready, get Set, flash

I have been averse to powder recently (looking cakey is one of my worst fear), however powder is your friend when it comes to wedding day make up, helping to ‘set’ the make up and create a long-lasting finish.

There are two main ways to go about this: If you’re looking for a natural glow, grab a fluffy powder brush and gentle pat in - rather than brushing over - Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Powder, and Lancome Belle De Teint Healthy Glow all over your face. 

If you are looking for an intense matte finish, grab Laura Mercier Translucent Powder (they also have a new Honey shade for warmer skin tones) and grab a damp beauty blender and dab under the eyes and on the contour of your cheek. Let it set and ‘bake’ for at least 10 minutes before brushing off with a fluffy, clean brush. We love the Anastasia Beverly Hill’s Blush Brush to brush it off. This is a bullet-proof way to ensure your make up lasts the whole day and doesn’t budge!

Oily/Dewy - The conundrum

For those with large open pores and oily skin wanting to look fresh and dewy on your big day, I have the perfect answer. Hourglass have the god-send of perfect make up for the wedding day. To give yourself a triple bulletproof-unmoveable base, add the Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer , for a smooth powerless finish. while you may be worried about the mattefying effect of this, there is the perfect product to counter this - the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Edit is a fantastic blush range with to easily sweep and blend onto your base for a growing complexion.

All eyes on you

Eyeshadow. Scary thought, with all these cut-crease videos on YouTube. Keep things simple and sparkly with the Stilla Iridescent Glitter and Glow Eyeshadows, which blend in well and work wonders for a touch of glimmer

It’s the inside that counts

Do you have a longer lead-time before your big day? If so, now is the perfect time for you to invest in some self-care and investing in some vitamins to bolster your skin and hair. We love Myvitamins Hyaluronic Acid and Coconut Collagen bundle for an easy boost for an inner glow to match your happiness. They also have a delicious Blueberry flavoured Hair, Skin & Nails Gummies to help with your glow-ness, just in time for your big day!

The Perfect Lip

I decided to do my own engagement make up too. I was inspired by J-Lo’s perfectly subtle smokey eyes and mixed with a glossy soft peach lip. As a beauty editor, I thought nothing of it; I assumed I would have one stocked away somewhere, easily accessible. Boy was I wrong; cue a frantic search for something, anything, that would match my soft lilac dress. 

To save yourself from such conundrums, it is perfectly justifiable to invest in a few shades of lippy. My go to for this would be Marc Jacobs Le Marc Lip Creame in Sugar High or Cream and Sugar - perfectly creamy and blending well on to the lip. I would then recommend  adding a soft and quick slick of the accompanying lipgloss for a perfect pout.