For business leaders, entrepreneurs and industry experts, a podcast appearance is an excellent opportunity to build credibility, share expertise and reach a new audience.
Naturally, most guests put considerable thought into what they’re going to say. They research the host, consider their key talking points, and perhaps even rehearse a few answers.
But there’s another aspect of preparation that’s often overlooked.
How are you going to look on camera?

How many hair and makeup artists do we actually need for my wedding?
Well actually, there isn’t a magic formula.
Six people having hair and makeup doesn’t automatically mean you need two artists and eight people doesn’t necessarily mean you need four.
The right size team depends on how many people are getting ready, what services everyone is having, what time you need to be ready, how complicated the looks are and – something that is very easily forgotten – what you actually want your wedding morning to feel like.

Hair and makeup has an interesting habit of being squeezed into whatever time remains on a production schedule… and then everybody wonders why the hair and makeup artist is asking for another ten minutes.
We’ve spent more than 15 years working across TV, film, corporate production, livestreams, interviews, and events, and if there’s one piece of advice we’d give a producer planning a filming day, it’s this:
Give hair and makeup the right information and enough time at the beginning, and we’ll probably save you time later.
Here’s what actually helps.

Ask most people what “camera-ready” means and they’ll probably talk about hair, makeup, clothes and looking polished.
After more than 15 years of putting people in front of cameras, I’d define it differently.
Camera-ready is a state.
It’s the point at which somebody stops worrying about themselves and feels ready to concentrate on whatever they’re actually there to do.
The hair and makeup?
That’s part of how we get them there.

I’ve been a part of many a wedding morning over the years – big weddings, small weddings, destination weddings… I’ve worked in rooms where it’s just been me and the bride and others which feels like the whole wedding party has arrived!
One thing I’ve learned is that how the morning starts sets the tone for the rest of the day.
Your wedding morning is actually a big part of the wedding, so while beautiful bridal hair and makeup obviously matters to us, creating an environment in which you can actually enjoy having it done matters just as much.

Headshot day is not the day to reinvent yourself.
Your photograph might sit on your company website, LinkedIn profile, press releases, speaker biography and countless proposals for the next few years. Someone may see it several times before they ever meet you.
And when they finally do, you want them to think, “Yes, that’s exactly who I expected.”
Not: “Oh. You look completely different.”

You’ll often see it called a bridal hair and makeup trial – and, after years in the industry, I still accidentally call it that myself! – but I’ve never particularly loved the word.
You’re not auditioning your face.
A preview is a chance to explore how you’d like to look, work with your artist, try the details and see everything begin to come together before the wedding… and it’s supposed to be enjoyable!

There are a lot of incredibly talented hair and makeup artists out there.
Give them a face, a head of hair and a reference image and they can create something beautiful.
But after more than 15 years of weddings, I’ve come to believe that being technically brilliant at hair and makeup doesn’t automatically make somebody a brilliant bridal hair and makeup artist.
Because bridal work is different.
It’s not just about what’s happening to the person in the chair. It’s about the person in the chair.

You’ll probably spend more time looking at photographs of your wedding than you ever spend actually looking at yourself on the day.
And because of that, brides understandably worry about how they’re going to look in them.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think the answer is to spend your wedding day thinking about how you look in photographs. Quite the opposite.

Professionally applied bridal makeup is designed for a very different job from your everyday makeup. It may be going on at 8am and still needs to look good through a ceremony, photographs, hugs, kisses, dinner, champagne, tears and several hours on the dance floor.

That doesn’t mean your face needs to be covered in industrial-strength foundation.

In fact, long-lasting bridal makeup isn’t really about putting more makeup on.
It’s about how it’s prepared, applied, layered and set.