Pre-Wedding Bridal Beauty Must-Do’s!
It is your day girl! We know you spent months deciding the wedding date, the invitation lists, finding suppliers, and what not! And the thoughts of choosing the perfect bridal outfit and accessories consume every bride’s every waking moment. Amidst all the planning and organizing, the you neglect the most important thing to take care of – yourself! You want to look like the most beautiful version of yourself on your wedding day, of course. Gladly, we are here to help! And what better way to do that than planning out a beauty routine all the way up to your wedding day?
1. Schedule Professional Facials
Your wedding is the perfect excuse for some extra pampering. You’ll want to book monthly facials to rejuvenate your skin. Experienced aestheticians will massage your skin, scalp and decolletage to stimulate blood circulation and keep your skin looking healthy. You can also request extractions. This is when your facialist gets all the dirt out of your pores. The process takes preparation and special techniques that, if done at home, can lead to irritation, or worse, scarring.
Pro Tip: Don’t limit your beauty rituals to just home care. Don’t settle for cheap either! Start early as you can to find the perfect salon or aesthetic center that deliver results for you!
BOS Recommends: Just refer to Beauticians & Hair dressers (as some have their own salons too) or Salons & Spa category in the directory available at the back of the
magazine!
2. Schedule Frequent Manicures
As soon as you announce the engaged, everyone wants to see your ring. Keep those nails and hands primed and pretty with regular manicures. This is also your chance to experiment with colors and get to know your manicurist.
Pro tip: Let your nail beds dictate the shape of your nails. Matching the two will give your hands and nails a balanced, elegant look. Gel manicures use UV technology for a harder and smoother finished nail. They’re a bit pricier but can last up to twice as long as a traditional manicure.
BOS Recommends: British Cosmetics Nail Studio at Crescat has a range of bridal nails for you to choose from. They offer a special discount for our brides – remember to take the coupon at the back of the magazine!
3. Whiten Your Teeth
Your smile says it all and you’ll want pearly whites for all those pictures. Most toothpastes have whitening ingredients in them, but for faster results, choose a special whitening one. Whitening strips are also a great option. Just don’t go overboard because anything that looks too artificial will become too prominent in pictures.
Pro Tip: Consult your dentist to get your teeth whitened professionally. Getting a professional whitening about six months ahead, so your teeth aren’t too brilliant on the day of the wedding.
4. Shrink Your Pores with Microdermabrasion
We want to give it to you straight! So, the bad news: You can’t actually change the size of your pores. The deeper a pore is, the bigger it looks on the skin’s surface. The good news: You can minimize the depth of your pores to make them seem smaller. Microdermabrasion, glycolic acid and other chemical peels will exfoliate layers of bad skin and minimize pore surface.
Pro Tip: Start at least 6 months before the wedding, as it will give time for your therapist to assess your skin and suggest the best treatment.
BOS Recommends: Estheti Centre at Ward Place, Colombo 7 uses state of this art equipment and offers excellent treatments.
5. Reduce Sunspots With an Acid Peel
Peels are designed to slough off dead skin and bring new, fresh skin to the surface. To make the most of these spa treatments, you’ll want to book a series of peels. Start with six different sessions, each two weeks apart (so skin has time to recover).
Pro Tip: Make sure you do an allergy or spot test – not all skin types react well to acid peels.
5. Eliminate Zits With Benzoyl Peroxide
If you’ve got a problem pimple, there are only one way to take care of it. And no, popping it isn’t one of them. The first is to dab benzoyl peroxide gel directly on the blemish. This will help dry it out (sometimes overnight).
Pro Tip: If you have acne, get help way before the wedding – it will give you time to treat and get rid of scars too.
6. Start Using an Eye Cream
In many cases, dark under-eye circles are hereditary. So the only way to reduce their appearance is with makeup. Start with an eye cream that has light diffusers, which reflect light to make the eye look brighter. use concealer only on the dark spots.
Pro Tip: Use concealer only on the dark spots. Look for one that matches your skin tone exactly, not one that’s a shade lighter—that can make your attempt to conceal even more noticeable. Remember to dab lightly to avoid tugging on delicate eye areas.
7. Exfoliate
You’d certainly want a body full of soft skin on your honeymoon, even if not the big day! Don’t forget your face too! Exfoliation is one of the best ways of getting skin that is free from dead cells and black heads. Make sure that you exfoliate your skin before using a face wash two or three times a week. Use a mild face wash. A harsh one can irritate the skin and give you rashes. You can also use a homemade scrub made of rice flour or whole-wheat flour, or a mixture of both to exfoliate the skin.
As for the body, sea salt is probably the best, but you are more than welcome to try other choices, which suits you best!
Pro Tip: Using a body scrub regularly in the shower will get rid of dead skin. Then, moisturize with a lotion that’s infused with almond or shea butter. Wrap your rough spot in a cloth for about an hour to keep the moisture locked in.
8. Get Rid of That Hair
The unwanted – of course! Start grooming yourself and take care of your legs, hands and body hair, including down under! Keep your eyebrows in shape. Whichever process you use for hair removal, maintain that bi-weekly or monthly, as per the requirement.
Pro Tip: Sudden hair removal of any part of the body can give you small cuts or rashes – so start at least 6 months before the big day.
BOS Recommends: Waxed Colombo is new, clean and has a range of imported products from Australia that suit any skin type (refer the Insider article in the last issue to learn more about them and all you need to know on waxing).
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How To Prepare The Groom’s Speech – Go from throat-clearing to ‘bottom’s up’ in style!
Normally wedged between the father of the bride speech and the best man speech, the groom’s speech definitely needs to stand out! But having said that, your speech should portray you and your personality – otherwise, chances are your guests will be inclined to think you copied someone else’s speech or printed it off the Internet!
For most grooms, this may well be their first experience of public speaking and being faced with a sea of familiar faces can actually make the task all-the-more daunting. It may not come naturally in front of a room of assembled friends and family, but try to speak from your heart. And if you forget absolutely everything on the day itself – including your notes – just remember to be genuine, honest and cheery. But this is probably the most important speech you will ever give, so please do justice to the gravitas of this big day.
TIPS TO REMEMBER:
You are NOT a Comedian!
The groom’s speech isn’t an opportunity for a 10-minute comedy stand-up routine, so try to balance your hilarious one-liners with a good dollop of sincerity.
Focus on the Bride
Although you’ll want to reference the best man and poke a bit of fun at him, remember what your wedding is about – your relationship with your bride, not your best mate, so less of the banter and more of the love, please!
Say ‘My Wife’
Early on, drop in ‘my wife and I’. It will always receive a warm cheer and will help set your nerves at rest before the speech.
Compliment Her
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tell her in front of a large collection of your friends and family, so make the most of it and make her feel amazing.
Keep it Clean
Make sure you don’t use bad language or distasteful content. Anything that could cause offense should be edited out.
Keep the Structure Simple.
All you really need is an intro (welcoming the guests), a boatload of thank yous, some humor-and-heart anecdotes about how you met your wife, and then a closing about how much you love her. That’s it!
Make Eye Contact
The more sincere elements of your groom’s speech will be more powerful if, when you’re talking about your wife, you actually make eye contact with her, and with the others you are thanking too.
Avoid Lists
Nothing can be more dull or unoriginal than a groom’s speech that resembles a school register.
Cross Reference
Find out who is speaking before you and make sure you’re not repeating what they’re planning to say.
Practice
When you’re done, practice more. Repeat. Keep practicing in the mirror until you can deliver it with confidence.
The Groom’s wedding speech is usually made on behalf of himself and his bride and uses the opportunity to personally thank the people involved in the wedding preparations. Another entertaining and sentimental part of the Groom’s speech is where you share your first encounter with your wife and how your life has changed because of it! You, the Groom, cannot forget anybody, as you will not be forgiven and you may also have to hear it for the rest of your dear life, if you do. So, here are the must-mentions for that all-important speech…
YOU MUST MENTION & THANK:
The Father of the Bride
Since your speech is followed the father of the bride speech, start of your speech by responding to what he said in his. Use a witty, but not over-the-top reply will set a nice tone for the rest of your speech. Plus, remember to thank him for all he’s done for the wedding, especially if you’ve gone the traditional route with the bride’s fam paying for the whole shebang.
The Bride’s Family
Now thank the rest of the bride’s family! Here you can tell all of your wedding guests about how they’ve helped you out with bringing this perfect day together, but also how they welcomed you into the family – chat about memories and let them know how special they’ve made you feel, and how special they are to you! It will mean a lot to them, trust us on this one!
Your Family
Thank them for all they’ve done for you to be the man you are today. It is definitely a proud moment for them to see their little boy stand tall as man who is starting his own new life. You could mention a few anecdotes from your childhood to make your family members feel special. Thank them for helping you with the wedding nitty-gritties. And finally thank them once again for being a part of the best days of your life!
The Bridesmaids
The Girl Squad! These are your wife’s VIPs! You can’t get away without mentioning these girls; otherwise you might have a squad of matching pink dresses on your case once the speeches are over. Plus, if your new wife isn’t making a speech, she’ll most definitely want you to make a thing of how great they’ve been – even the bad bridesmaids will have had their advantages at some time during the wedding planning! Also, make sure you tell them how beautiful they look, too!
The Groomsmen
And now, for your right hand men! Because choosing your groomsmen was probably one of your main tasks to do with the wedding, there’s a lot you can mention; from why you chose them, through to what these little elves have been doing to help your big day run smoothly. But try not to go all out on the private jokes, the embarrassing or ‘You had to be there’ moments from the stag do; it’s likely that most of your wedding guests weren’t ‘there’ so they just won’t get it.
The Best Man
After all, what would you be without your Wingman? The groom and the best man are usually inseparable during the highs and lows of wedding planning. The moment there’s any sign of bridezilla, the best man will know about it. He must definitely mean a lot to you. And because you’ve had so many memories, you’ll have a lot to talk about. But remember to chat to your best man about what’s in his speech – you don’t want him repeating things that you’ve said in yours.
Everyone Else Who Helped
The list of everyone did bits and bobs towards the big day might be endless, but give the main helpers a shout out! Maybe you made the most of a close friend’s baking skills for your wedding cake, or maybe your relative is a keen dress maker? Big features like that deserve to be appreciated, and if you really don’t have time to get through the list of all the helpers, a shout out to the vague ‘everyone else who helped’ will do, but remember to give them a little thank you when you see them.
Your Guests
Whilst they may not have contributed to the wedding planning process, your wedding guests deserve a bit of appreciation. Not only are they the people in your life that are worth inviting to celebrate your big day, they would have made an effort to be there. Some will have travelled a long way, most will have bought a new outfit, and almost all would have got you a special gift to congratulate you and your new wifey!
The Bride
DO NOT FORGET THIS ONE! A toast to the bride in your wedding speech is pretty crucial, but we’re sure you already knew that. Here’s what you talk about – start off by saying how beautiful she looks, then the effort that she’s put in, how well she’s done it, and of course, how happy you are to be marrying her. But it’s not as simple as that! We’re not putting the words into your mouth – embellish it with a bit of nostalgia and sentimentality. Talking about the ‘little things’ about the bride will make it that extra bit special, for her and your guests.
FINALLY, RAISE YOUR GLASS! And last but least, raise your glass and toast the Bridesmaids and to your new wife!
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