One bride. One wedding day. Three completely different hair and makeup looks.
This wedding of Shakeela and Richard at Syon Park may have been a few years ago now, but it’s a lovely example of something we still regularly do at CJC Hair & Makeup: looking after a bride through a multi-event wedding and changing her hair and makeup as the celebrations – and outfits – change.
For Shakeela’s wedding, that meant being there throughout the day and creating three different looks for her Hindu ceremony, civil ceremony, and evening reception.
And honestly, if you’re going to have three fabulous outfits, why wouldn’t you have the hair and makeup to go with them?
Bridal hair and makeup for a Hindu ceremony
For the traditional ceremony, we created a softer, more relaxed hairstyle, with the hair flowing over to one side.
When we’re creating hair and makeup for an Indian or Hindu wedding, the outfit and jewellery are a huge part of the overall look. Bridal jewellery in particular can affect how we design the hair — and the hair and makeup artist will often be involved in helping to position and secure pieces correctly too.
Colour also gives us something wonderful to play with.
Traditional wedding outfits can be beautifully vibrant, which gives us the opportunity to introduce more colour into the makeup and create a look that works as part of the whole outfit rather than treating the hair, makeup, clothes and jewellery as separate things.
A complete change for the civil ceremony
Next came the civil ceremony… and a white wedding dress.
Rather than simply tweaking the first look, we changed the hair completely and created a more classic, structured updo.
It worked beautifully with the neckline of Shakeela’s dress and left her shoulders exposed, while the overall hair and makeup felt right for a very different outfit and ceremony.
That’s really the point of multiple bridal looks.
We’re not changing your hair and makeup three times simply for the sake of having three hairstyles.
Each look needs to make sense with what you’re wearing, the jewellery, the type of ceremony and how you want to feel at that particular part of the day.
And then it’s time for the party…
The final transformation was for the evening reception.
By this point, the formal ceremonies were over, and we could change things again for the evening celebrations, creating a third look to work with Shakeela’s reception outfit.
There is something rather fabulous about being able to reinvent yourself throughout your wedding day.
You only get married once – hopefully! – so if you love hair, makeup and fashion and have several incredible outfits to wear, why not enjoy all of them?
How do multiple hair and makeup changes work on one wedding day?
This is the part that needs a little more thought than people at first realise.
Indian and multicultural weddings can involve several ceremonies and events, sometimes spread over a number of days and sometimes – as with this wedding – happening on the same day.
If you’re changing your hair and makeup between events, you’re effectively leaving your own wedding to do it and you don’t want to disappear for two hours while everybody else is having a wonderful time without you.
So when we’re planning multiple bridal looks, we consider not only what we’d like to create but what’s realistically achievable in the time available.
Sometimes that means a completely new hairstyle. Sometimes we’ll design the first look knowing how we intend to transform it into the second. Jewellery needs to come off and be replaced. Outfits need changing. Makeup may need adjusting. And somewhere amongst all of that, we’d quite like the bride to have five minutes to breathe!
The schedule matters enormously.
Should your hair and makeup artist stay with you throughout the wedding?
For a wedding involving several looks on the same day, they certainly can.
For Shakeela’s wedding, I stayed at Syon Park throughout the day, changing her hair and makeup between events and making sure she was happy and ready for each part of the celebration.
It’s a service we still offer today.
CJC can provide hair and makeup across multi-day and multi-event weddings, as well as staying with a bride for changes during a single wedding day.
There is another benefit to having your artist there too: continuity.
You’re not explaining your preferences to somebody new halfway through your wedding. We already know what we’ve used, how your hair behaves, what needs changing, what needs refreshing, and what we’re doing next.
You can come back to us, sit down and let us look after you.
Planning several bridal looks? Don’t forget to leave time to enjoy them
There is one thing I’d say after many years of doing weddings like this: don’t cram so much into the schedule that your wedding starts to feel like a job!
Multiple outfits, different hairstyles and makeup changes can be enormous fun – and the photographs afterwards can be incredible – but every additional transformation takes time.
There needs to be a balance between getting all those beautiful photographs and actually being present at your own wedding.
That’s something we’re very happy to help you work through when planning your hair and makeup schedule. Sometimes the answer is a full transformation; sometimes a clever change to an existing style will give you a completely different feeling without taking you away from your guests for too long.
Multi-event and Indian wedding hair and makeup with CJC
Although this particular Syon Park wedding took place many years ago (way back in 2017!) the logistics behind it are still very much part of what we do.
Our team can look after the bride, family and bridal party across traditional ceremonies, civil ceremonies and receptions, whether everything happens in one gloriously busy day or across several days of celebrations.
And if you want three different looks?
We’re certainly not going to talk you out of having some fun.
Planning an Indian, multicultural or multi-event wedding? Tell us what you have planned, how many events you’re having, and where you’ll be getting ready, and we can help you work out the hair and makeup team, timings, and transformations you’ll need.
