Some brides arrive at their trial with a vague idea; others arrive with it practically sketched out. She had hers sketched out: a loose, romantic updo with soft, organic lines and strands that looked as if they had slipped loose on their own. Nothing tight, nothing stiff, nothing that gave away the hairspray. What she was asking for was lightness, and lightness is the hardest thing to make last, because her wedding began in the morning and ended at night, and an updo that looks loose tends to come down as the hours go by. So I planned, strand by strand, everything that later had to look unplanned.
The couple had come from Sweden and chosen the Costa del Sol for their wedding. I work with a great many destination weddings, and the same thing moves me every time: a couple marrying far from home places a day they have pictured for a long time in the hands of someone they have barely met. That trust is looked after from the very first moment, which is why every detail at the trial was decided slowly, together with her.
The makeup was designed as a soft glam finish, gentle and luminous, that would leave her skin looking like skin. On top of that idea, the base was built with a little more coverage, using techniques borrowed from full glam, because she wanted to even out her skin tone in a few areas. Everything else was decided by the light she pictured in her photographs: she wanted the sunset to find her golden, so I worked in warm tones that follow her own colouring, already warm, and carried the romantic feel of the hair into them.
August gave no respite. It was seriously hot, and heat is hard on both hair and skin: humidity softens a loose updo and brings shine exactly where it isn't wanted. For the hair I worked with dry, texturising products, nothing heavy or wet, and finished it with a flexible hairspray that holds without going stiff. On the skin I set only the key areas with powder and kept the light alive on the cheekbones, somewhere between matte and glow, then fixed the makeup with a water-resistant product to protect it from humidity and sweat.
Fort Inglés helps a great deal with all of this. It is an estate in Mijas tucked away in a private valley, with no houses around it, mountains in the background and olive groves on the slopes. I did the bride's hair and makeup in the bridal suite, which spans two floors and is full of natural light, the best thing a makeup artist can ask for: in that light the real tone of the skin doesn't lie. There, calmly, what had been decided at the trial took shape, and that is exactly what stayed in the photographs.
I finished mid-morning, with her already in her wedding dress, and the celebration went on well into the night. She danced, she jumped, people hugged her and touched her hair, and not once did she have to think about her updo.
In the golden-hour photographs, with her husband holding her from behind, the updo is still whole: it moves with her, loosens just enough and doesn't fall. And her makeup reaches the sunset with the same golden glow it had in the morning, just as it looked at the makeup trial, which was exactly what she had pictured.
