Wedding Beauty Timeline: A Month-by-Month Guide to Pre-Wedding Beauty Preparations
Guest post by Raquel Alba Beauty
The big day is fast approaching, and between the dress fittings, venue planning, and all the other wedding prep, it’s easy to overlook your beauty routine. But your bridal beauty is just as important as everything else — after all, you’ll be in the spotlight! Having a solid beauty timeline will ensure you look and feel your best from the engagement photos to the “I dos.”
This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about properly taking care of your skin during the months and days leading up to your wedding day, as well as keeping track of skincare, hair, and makeup services, ensuring you’re glowing for your wedding day.
12 Months Before Your Wedding: Start with Skincare Basics and Researching Treatments
Skincare: As you are preparing for your wedding day, you want to ensure you give yourself enough time to get on a good skin care routine and get any treatments you wish to have. The sooner you start taking care of your skin, the better the results will be! Begin by building a consistent skincare routine tailored to your skin type. A good place to start is with a consultation from an aesthetician or dermatologist. Focus on hydration, exfoliation, sun protection and targeting any trouble areas you may have. If you are planning on getting any laser treatments, chemical peels or any injectables, it’s important to plan these out around this time. These kinds of treatments can take several sessions to achieve the best results, so it’s best to start consultations and treatment plans early on.
Hair Health: If you’re planning on a drastic hair change (e.g., going shorter or a new color), this is the time to explore your options. Give yourself enough time for growth or color correction before the wedding.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Nail Care: Begin nourishing your nails and cuticles to ensure they’re in good shape for your big day. I would avoid getting too many manicures leading up to your wedding day, as they can make your nails brittle and break easily. Hair Health: If you’re planning on a drastic hair change (e.g., going shorter or a new color), this is the time to explore your options. Give yourself enough time for growth or color correction before the wedding.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
8-10 Months Before Your Wedding: Plan Facial Treatments
Facial Treatments: This is the ideal time to start any skin treatments, such as facials, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, filler or injectables. If you have a specific skin concern (like acne or pigmentation), give yourself time for multiple treatments, as results will be gradual. These are the most time intensive treatments and will require some downtime in between, so it’s best to get an early start on them.
4-6 Months Before Your Wedding: Focus on Skin Treatments and Maintenance
Facial Treatments: Continue getting your treatments that you have already started, just make sure not to try anything too new in the final weeks leading up to the wedding to avoid any unexpected reactions. A specific treatment that I love and swear by (and all of my clients love too!) is a Hydrafacial. This treatment delivers incredible results to the skin and it’s great for hydrated, even toned, and glow skin. Start doing Hydrafacials once a month, preferably starting at the 4 month mark to get the best results.
Hair Care: Continue with your regular haircuts and trims. Now is also a great time to schedule any color treatments — whether you’re going for a full-color refresh or something more subtle like balayage.
Body Treatments: If you’re planning any body treatments like waxing, now is the time to start considering how many sessions you’ll need to feel confident on the big day.
2-3 Months Before Your Wedding: Finalize Your Beauty Look
Makeup and Hair Trial: This is the best time to schedule your makeup and hair trail. Your skin will start to look its best around this time as well, which will be a perfect canvas for your makeup trial. Ideally, you should book your makeup and hair trial on the same day because it will give you an idea of how you will look on your wedding day. When you come to your makeup trial without your hair done and vice versa, the hair and the makeup can look too heavy. You can read here for more tips and tricks on ensuring you come prepared for your makeup trial! Pro tip: Book your spray tan trial 2 days before your makeup trial.
Start Waxing or Brow Shaping: If you haven’t already, consider scheduling regular eyebrow shaping or waxing sessions to get your brows in perfect shape. This will give your skin enough time to adjust and avoid irritation on the day of your wedding.
Start Dermaplaning Sessions: I highly recommend all of my clients to get Dermaplaning done. Not only is it a great exfoliator for the skin, it also removes excess hair/peach fuzz and dry skin from the face. Your aesthetician will use a clinical blade that shaves off the hair, revealing super soft, smooth and exfoliated skin. My favorite treatment to pair with dermaplaning is a Hydrafacial- you will have the smoothest and glowiest skin ever! You can do Dermaplaning once a month and 5 days before your wedding day.
2 Months Before Your Wedding: Book Final Touch-Ups and Relaxation
Skin Maintenance: Now is the time for the last round of chemical peels, dermabrasions or any treatment that requires downtime for your skin. Keep your routine consistent, focusing on maintaining your glow without introducing anything too new.
Haircuts: If you’re planning to get a final trim before the wedding, this is the month to do it. The last thing you want is to risk over-cutting or making any drastic changes close to the wedding.
1 Month Before Your Wedding: Final Prep & Relaxation
Final Skin Treatments: In the last month leading up to your wedding, you can start focusing more on hydrating and gentle facials, like Hydrafacials. I also recommend doing some at-home hydrating face masks once a week.
Hydrate and Nourish Your Body: This month should be all about calming your nerves and ensuring your body feels refreshed and ready for the wedding. Start hydrating a ton, eat lots of fruits and veggies, nourish your body with healthy foods, and focus on getting good sleep.
Touch-ups: If you’re planning on any last-minute body hair removal or skin treatments, like waxing, this is your final opportunity to do so without disrupting your natural glow or your spray tan (if you will be getting one). Remember to do your waxing treatments a few days before getting a spray tan!
Wedding Week: Prepping for Perfection
In the week leading up to your wedding, it’s all about keeping things simple and relaxed. You really want to avoid doing any treatments at all as to ensure your skin won’t be irritated the day of the wedding.
Day Before: Keep your skincare routine minimal to avoid irritation. Consider doing a hydrating face mask to ensure your skin is plump and glowing.
Day-of: Arrive at your getting ready location prepped for makeup and hair. Ensure your skin is cleansed thoroughly and your hair has been washed the day before. Before you start makeup, ensure you have eaten your breakfast, teeth have been brushed, and bring straws to enjoy your drinks while getting ready! Ensure you set aside a designated getting ready room with plenty of natural light (perfect for your getting ready photos and makeup!) and lots of room for your makeup artist and hair stylist to set up. Most importantly, enjoy your morning of beauty prep! Your hair stylist and makeup artist will take care of the rest, and you’ll be glowing in no time.
About the Author
Hi there! I’m Raquel, the gal behind Raquel Alba Beauty. I’m a Seattle based wedding makeup artist that specializes in timeless and classic beauty. As a makeup artist, it is my mission to bring to life your wedding beauty vision so that you can feel the best and most confident version of yourself on your wedding day, and can look back on your wedding day photos for years to come and love the way you looked and felt. As I like to say, bridal beauty isn’t just about makeup and hair, it’s an emotional connection to how we feel- when you love how you look, you feel amazing!
I hope you enjoyed reading through this wedding beauty timeline! Planning ahead is the key to a calm and beautiful wedding day. Starting your beauty routine early, staying consistent with skincare and hair care, and allowing time for trials and adjustments will give you peace of mind and the confidence to walk down the aisle knowing you look your absolute best!