Now that I've had some time to settle after my own wedding, I thought I'd take the time to take you through the tips and tricks that I picked up along the way with my wedding planning.

I was extremely fortunate to have a wonderful day where all my planning resulted in an amazing day, so to start off with the best advice I can give to any future bride is to make sure that the wedding you plan is what YOU and YOUR HUSBAND TO BE want.

I am going to repeat that one more time, plan the wedding that you and your husband to be want. I can not stress this enough, if you start planning based on what you think everyone else wants you will begin to feel incredibly frustrated and overwhelmed, what the wedding is like really should not matter to anyone else.

My second tip for wedding planning is getting comfortable with the word "NO".

It is perfectly ok to say NO. Coming back to my my first tip, a lot of my unnecessary wedding planning stress was from people giving me unwanted opinions, the closer we got to our wedding, the more I was comfortable saying no. It's ok to say no to inviting your great Aunty twice removed if your husband to be and yourself do not want to pay for that person at your wedding. You do what you guys need to do so that you have an amazing day with the people you want to celebrate with!

Tip 3: Choose your vendors based on how you want to create your perfect day.

My husband and I are not very traditional so we went with a whole bunch of vendors who fitted our vision of our perfect day. We spent a lot of time researching to make sure that our vision came to life, we were extremely fortunate in being able to utilise the beautiful gardens of some family friends, Ruth and Matthew. Ruth and Matthew are the absolute sweetest and looked after us so well, ensuring we had everything we needed to make sure our day went off without a hitch, we literally can not thank them enough for all that they did for us.

Your wedding day is one of the most photographed days of your life, make sure you choose quality photographers who will create beautiful lasting memories for you. Make sure you allow enough money in your budget to have a quality photographer.

We were incredibly fortunate to have the amazing Pamela from Aubrey Strawberry Photography capturing all of our staged shots which we will treasure forever. Our wonderful friend Dean Goodwin from Dean Goodwin Photography did an amazing job capturing all of the moments of silliness after everyone started to relax a little post ceremony! Huge thank you to our wonderful best man, Jeff McCarthy of Photos of Art who captured some amazing photos of us as well as surprising us with an amazing framed print for us to remember our amazing day.

Hair and makeup artists - now I'm not just saying this as a hair and makeup artist myself, but you spend so much money on looking your best with your dress/flowers/veil/jewellery please don't forget about hair and makeup. Hair and makeup are such a personal thing, my best tip here is to do your research, have a look at the artist's body of work and their style to make sure you are compatible before booking hair or makeup trials.

My hair and makeup team on my wedding day were amazing and some lovely ladies I'm lucky to call my friends! Huge thank you to Amy from The Asgard Collective for my killer hair, you'd have never known how thin my hair was apart from me just pointing it out! Jaye Marie from Jaye Marie Makeup and Beauty did the most amazing job of creating my super dramatic makeup that was exactly what I wanted, Jaye is such an incredible artist and I knew before we were even engaged that I'd book her for my wedding makeup!

There's so many amazing catering options out there for weddings these days you can literally pick anything! We had a cocktail reception with some more substantial food options in there too, our catering was through Emporess Catering Perth - we can not recommend these guys enough! The food was super tasty and everyone was very well fed, they also left the kitchen amazingly clean and were very reasonably priced. We also had desserts and bar service provided by Delish Ice, they make amazing artisan pops in a wonderful variety of flavours, my personal favourite is the salted malted caramel!

Choosing the right celebrant is important, a lot of our friends and family have been getting married over the last few years so we have been paying attention to what sort of ceremony was conducted and how the ceremony went with the couple. We were married by my good friend, Veronica (Nikki) Mauri. Nikki was amazing, she is such a professional and brought such a warm lovely vibe to our day, her ceremony beautifully captured the sharing of my relationship with my husband in a way that none of the other celebrants we came across could have. I highly recommend that you have a chat to Nikki if you are looking for someone with a bubbly personality who will create a beautiful ceremony.

Last but not least, choosing the right dress should be a wonderful experience, I have another post that will go into this in further detail but a huge thank you must go out to my amazing dress maker, Beata Ridley of Chein Noir Dezines!

Now see the below links for the above mentioned vendors!
Emporess Catering - http://www.emporess.com.au/
Aubrey Strawberry Photography - https://www.aubreystrawberryphotography.com/
Dean Goodwin Photography - http://www.deangoodwin.com.au/
Delish Ice - https://delishice.com.au/
Jaye Marie Makeup and Beauty - https://www.jayemarie.com.au/
The Asgard Collective - https://www.theasgardcollective.com/
Chein Noir Dezines - http://www.cheinnoir.com/
Veronica "Nikki" Mauri - https://www.facebook.com/NikkiMauriMarriageCelebrant/

Following on from my moderately successful post on guest ettiquette, I present my next blog post as a cranky bride, where I will be covering expectations from wedding vendors. This one will be a bit of a doozy but I promise it is worth the read, as I can give you my unique insight as both a bride and a wedding vendor myself.

As a relatively ecclectic pair, my fiancé and I spent a lot of time looking into all of the aspects of our upcoming wedding before making any major decisions and here are the top things that we expected from our potential vendors.

1. Punctual Replies

This really sounds like it should be a common sense thing but honestly after the amount of enquiries I sent out I can tell you how much time I spent waiting for people to get back to me. In Perth particularly, peak wedding season is between October and May. We got engaged in early November 2015 and spent a week and a bit on a previously planned holiday before getting stuck into wedding planning.

During peak season please allow businesses time to get back to you! On average as I was sending enquiries in peak season a reasonable amount of time for me to wait was 2 weeks. I am also possibly more patient then most, however there were multiple businesses that took between 4 and 8 weeks to respond. This is far too long.

2. Professionalism

This one is a big one! Some of us brides have been known to be a little demanding and sometimes even difficult. If you have enquired with a quality vendor or even booked a quality vendor and you are not being realistic you should expect professionalism. From a brides perspective, I expect my vendors to be punctual, and be professional in their communication as well as their presentation.

As a vendor working with other vendors for your big day, I expect to be able to work with YOUR chosen team and that we all be respectful of each other's needs. This in my case is usually interacting with the other hair stylist/makeup artist and also the photographer, ensuring they work together with me to get you ready for your big day on time!

3. Terms and Conditions

As a bride you should expect to receive terms and conditions from your vendors. What this means is that they have covered themselves and you in case of anything happening. I highly suggest you read through them properly as it will generally cover everything from what to do in case of them not being able to make it etc and also what they expect from you.

If you do not receive these please think about it before you book with your vendor. As a hair and makeup artist I hear lots of stories from brides who have booked with artists who don't have terms and conditions or have under-quoted and have found that they need to replace their artist weeks, sometimes even days before the wedding.

4. Quality

Please ensure you do your research! Look at their previous work, ask for recommendations from other brides. I can not stress this enough. If you aren't sure ask to see further work, with social media so accessible these days it shouldn't be hard to look through vendors work and make decisions for quality vendors for your big day.

If you have a particular vendor in mind enquire early as vendors in high demand can book out 12+ months in advance, this is particularly the case with photographers, makeup artists and hair stylists so please keep that in mind.

5. Follow through

This one is feeling like a common sense thing but if your vendor promises to do something they should follow through with it.

As a bride when I was promised something especially from the vendors already briefly touched on in point 1, if I had any sort of gut feeling I'd have issues I wrote down what was promised on what date and when it was promised by. This gave me a visual representation of when to let it go, that these vendors did not deserve my cash.

May your wedding planning be stressfree!

As we enter into peak wedding season here in Australia I thought I would take some time to provide my top tips on how to be a top guest at a wedding!

As I am sure some of you that follow my work are aware I am actually a 2017 bride myself, so as I'm sure many of my newly weds and soon to be wed clients would know all of the frustrations that come along with organising the wedding. I'll be breaking it down and adding my tips for planning as I go in blog posts just like this one.

Before we get to the formalities, being a top guest starts with your RSVP!

1. When you receive your formal invitation to the wedding of your friend/family member/work colleague etc the first thing to note is the WHO is invited. Does the invitation have just your name on it or does it have you and your partner?

Please pay close attention to this as it will guide you on the way to being a top guest! Only RSVP for those who have been invited. If there aren't names for your kids etc please don't hesitate to contact the bride/groom to ask, but as a rule of thumb, if the name isn't there, they have not been catered for.

​2. Please RSVP by the due date! This allows the bride and groom time to finalise numbers for catering as well as allowing for any extra hire items that they may need to allow for. It also confirms how many wedding favours are required! This is particularly important for anyone who is self catering their wedding.

My wedding invitations literally read if you don't RSVP by the due date please bring a sandwich and a chair. I pinched the idea from Offbeat Bride. People think I'm joking but I'm actually dead serious about this!

3. If you aren't sure on the dress code please ask, if you aren't wanting to disturb the bride and you know who the bridesmaids are please reach out to them to ask for some ideas.

​4. If you can't make it, be honest with the bride and groom! They will most likely be a little disappointed but don't RSVP and say yes then cancel at the last minute. Chances are that the bride and groom have already paid for you which could be from as little as $25 a head to $200+ a head. This could mean that they could have added some nicer luxuries to their honeymoon or invited someone else.

Beinv brutally honest here, my fiancé and I have quite openly said we don't mind if you don't come but please let us know! It means for every person we don't pay for we can spend a little more on our honeymoon.

Ettiquette tips for on the day

1. Please respect the bride and grooms wishes regarding social media and pictures at the wedding. If there is a wedding hashtag please utilise it as it will make it easier for them to find any photographs after their day is over. If they have asked for you to refrain from posting until they have had a chance to please respect that wish.

2. Unplugged ceremonies are becoming increasingly popular! As is the case with our upcoming wedding we have respectfully asked that it be an unplugged ceremony, this means no phones or cameras or any other picture taking device unless you are one of the paid professionals.

We made this this decision after attending the wedding of a friend of mine where a child with her iPad was getting in the way of the paid professional. I can not stress this enough! Don't be that guy even if it is not an unplugged ceremony, be respectful of not being in the way of the professionals.

3. Gifts - the modern bride and groom have traditionally been living together for some time before they get married so a lot of the old traditional gifts are not the way to go. We appreciate that attending a wedding can be expensive just like it is expensive to actually have a ceremony and reception. If you are stuck for ideas cash is always a good way to go, alternatively look at gift vouchers. One of the best ideas I've had recently was to gift flight centre vouchers which can be used towards the honeymoon or the like.

4. Don't bring any negativity or drama to the wedding. This is a common sense thing, this is the happiest day of the bride and grooms life so far so please make sure you add to the happy vibe.

​ Alcohol consumption

1. This one feels like it should be a commonsense thing but given that commonsense is becoming increasingly uncommon, please be mindful of your behaviour. If you are likely to get rowdy and cause embarrassment to the bride and groom please limit your consumption.

2. No one likes a hangover, please make sure you keep hydrated with water in between alcoholic beverages. Try not to drink on an empty stomach!

Thank you for reading the musings of a cranky bride,

May your wedding planning be as stressless as possible.

My apologies to those who have been waiting for this blog post, after a chaotic last few months I've taken a couple hours out to post the entirety of my thoughts on the Rehab London products I received as a PR sample from the lovely Deanna Nott from Wings Public Relations. The Rehab London range has recently been added to the range of products available at Target Australia.

Firstly I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce to the company a little, Rehab London was founded by an extremely talented hair and makeup artist by the name of Lisa Hilton, who decided to create the range after discovering through her work that there was a gap in the market for men's skincare items, particularly for those who work in mens grooming.  With that in mind, Rehab London was born, the products are made from natural botanical ingredients and essential oils, formulated to leave no residue on the skin. The products are made free from DEAs, Parabens, SLSs, Sulfates, Silicones and Palm Oil Products. Rehab London also do not test on animals.

As part of my PR package I received 2 out of the 7 products available from the range, the Shine Free Mattifying Oil Control Lotion and the Back to Matte Men's Anti-Shine Mattifying Gel. I have given both of these products a thorough workout over the last few months (August to November) and will repurchase both items when they are gone! I'd like to mention that though these items are formulated for men, they can also be fantastic for women. 

SHINE FREE - Ok so this little beauty is an oil controlling moisturiser essentially, It is has a light aftershave styled scent that disperses after it has settled into the skin. This is an extremely versatile product as it adds a little moisture to the skin, and I found it particularly great for those with combination skin, who have some dryness but also become oily. It also is a great base under foundation for mens grooming, I used it under MUFE Ultra HD foundation with no issues with foundation separating.

BACK TO MATTE - This is an anti-shine mattifying gel, I used this on both men and women during my testing, also utilising it on my own face as I am prone to getting shine on my face as the day goes on, however not due to my skin in itself being oily. This one has no noticeable scent and settles into the skin quickly. I found this was a particularly great product for mattifying shine on large areas of skin over the head and face, i.e. balding men. Back to matte also performed really well as a base product underneath makeup for extending life of makeup in hot environments such as nightclubs and events.

The range also features a cleansing scrub, called Scrub Up Daily Detox, the other moisturiser in the range is Morning Glory, in their shaving range they have Calm Balm and Argan Oil Shaving Gel and an anti-fatigue cream called Revive Survive.

Hello everyone. It has been a little while so I'm going to start today off with a review of the polishes in the September, avengers themed what's in-die box. Just as an FYI this is not a paid for or sponsored post. I have purchased this box as a way of being able to try a few more indie brands and I'll be sharing photos of the contents etc as well as swatches and wear photos.

I've added some photos of what the actual box looks like when you take it out of the click and send satchel, as well as the polish names and the makers. Below is the post of the bottles after being unwrapped from the protective papers. The bottles are packaged very well to ensure that there is no accidental breakages.

I've photographed the polishes in the order they appear on the previously photographed flyer. As a disclaimer my nails are a little weak at the moment and I have had more instances of my nails actually breaking rather than the polish actually lifting.

My on the nail swatches show each polish with a base coat (opi base coat), two coats of polish and then two coats of opi top coat. As most of the polishes are either crellies or full glitter these do take a bit of work to get a nice application.

Light the bastards up! Was the first polish I tried from the box. This is a crellie and is a cream/jelly type consistency with glitter, this took a lot of work to get the coats even and to layer the large circle glitter nicely.

I'm usually not a fan of this type of finish as I find the large glitters frustrating to apply, however I do actually quite like the finish on this polish.

Phwoar! Thor was the second polish from the line up that I tried, this could be a one coat application however the base colour did appear more pink then red once it dried, I applied a second coat which kept the colour more true. Once again this polish is packed with glitter. Truly beautiful but I recommend a thicker top coat than the opi top coat to try and actually even out the roughness from the glitter.

Black widow is a holographic black with some microglitter through it as well. This was the smoothest to apply out of all of the polishes with the most even colour spreading. This I think is a favourite as the colour is quite dissimilar to my other darker polishes due to the colour shift in the holo.

Hulk smash was again quite difficult to layer, it's a thick crellie styled polish with various sized glitter. It was quite temperamental to get the coats even and to get the polish to layer out. I also noticed that the nail polish took a very long time to actually dry properly, I have smudged one of my nails quite bad approximately 3 hours after application which I found very frustrating.

Last but not least, iron man by Peitas polish. This baby is jam packed full of glitter of various colours and sizes. There is a slight gold base to the polish, which applied amazingly evenly for a glitter polish. It was relatively fast to dry and would have been OK as a one coat polish also.

I have not tried any of the brands in the box this month before so it was my first try for these brands. Attached is a wear photo from 24 hours after application

So I thought I'd start off with a post of last weeks manicure first, I got 8 full days of wear out of my celestial polish before it started to chip and I'm most impressed!

Going into this weeks swatches, I've put on fire and blood as well as a full nail of nothing lasts forever. First thing I noticed is that fire and blood pulls a bit more pink than red but its still beautiful and applies very nicely.

Nothing lasts forever is a beautiful polish but I did find due to the amount of microglitter that the polish applied and felt a little rough. The consistency of the polish is a bit thicker than the holographic formulas but is still beautiful none the less. As the consistency is a little thicker it may make for a nice stamping polish.

As I work with both makeup and face paint the longevity test for these colours was cut short due to paint transfer that would not come off my nails without the nail polish being removed. I've also added in photos of the repaint including kings road and you win or you die. The photos shown have had two coats of the coloured polishes with a base and top coat applied

I stumbled upon Celestial Cosmetics seemingly by accident, it came up in my Facebook feed as a suggested page, I thought I'd have a look at what they made and boy was I surprised. Celestial cosmetics is an Australian based Indie nail polish company, based just South of Adelaide. 

Celestial Cosmetics makes a variety of different polishes including holo, cremes, glitter and multi chrome. I saw a post about the Iron throne collection being released and decided to wait for it's release to do my first order.

The nail polishes come beautifully wrapped and each order comes with a handwritten thank you note which i think is a beautiful touch! I have ordered Fire & Blood, You Win or You Die, Dance with Dragons, Kings Road and Nothing Lasts Forever. 

I've also got no self control so I've pulled off my current polish and put on the one I was most drawn to first. I've put on Dance with Dragons, a base coat, two coats of dance with dragons and a layer of top coat. The pigmentation is amazing. The holographics are highly reflective and of a fine micro glitter which means that they apply smooth without dragging like some of the more chunky glitter polishes out there.

I've been pleasantly surprised and will be definitely adding more to my collection as new things are released!

Good evening everyone! It has been a little while since I've done a blog post and I have a backlog of reviews to post! To make up for that I am going to start with the first review!

For those that follow that blog that haven't met me in person yet, I have a love of tattoos as well as makeup and hair styling. On the recommendation of my amazing tattoo artist, Chauntelle Wilkinson at The Tatt Shop, I've tried the Dr Pickles Tattoo Balm to heal the latest progress on my half sleeve in progress.

First impression was that it smelt a bit funny. The balm is made from fermented pawpaw and has done wonders for healing my tattoo quickly. I also have quite sensitive skin and have had reactions to other methods of healing tattoos such as bepanthen cream/ointment.

Dr Pickles Tattoo Balm has sped up the healing process but it is a little greasy and hard to remove from your hands so I recommend using gloves when you apply it.

It's been a while since I've done a blogpost so I thought it was about time that I did one!

This will be an ongoing review post whilst I suss out all the liquid matte lipsticks out there on the market and the aim is to give people the best information I can about the products I've tried as well as touching on what I've done prior to application, how the product wears and how it feels on the skin. What's prompted this you might ask? Earlier in the week the beauty industry here in Australia was told that Lime Crime was pulling the distribution and stockist rights here.

One of my most used products is the lime crime velvetine in wicked but I've been on the search for something that is more readily available, the problem I have with wicked is that it's often out of stock across many suppliers and that provides issues with keeping up stock levels for popular products.

Without further ado, the first product on my review list is one made by an Australian company, Klara Cosmetics, the product is called Kiss Proof Lips and according to their website is meant to last 24 hours.

This morning I popped on two coats over moistured lips as per the instructions on the packaging. At AUD$29 these are not the cheapest product available but I want to try and support Australian businesses when ever possible. At 8:10 this morning I popped on this lip product on clean dry lips that had proper hydration using a disposable applicator.

The picture just above was just after application, I've also only applied the kiss proof lips as well as a light moisturiser as I don't typically wear a full face of makeup on a day where I'm not working.

Klara Cosmetics kiss proof lips lasted pretty well throughout the day, my main observation was that the formula was quite drying on the lips, I think I'll road test the product again under different preparation methods, which will be covered through a YouTube video at a later point in time. This liquid matte lipstick has survived mostly through three meals and countless drinks and it's definitely kiss proof!

I've managed to get approximately 9 hours out of my lip colour application today but you'd probably have to top up the application through out the day to get a solid 24 hours out of the colour.

From my first impression, it's a pretty decent product but I'll report back with the video once I've trialled a lip scrub and paw paw ointment hydration before application.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more reviews!

Just a little update, I did a second test run of the Klara kiss proof lips, I did a full preparation of my lips prior to usage in that I did a lip scrub and also rehydrated my lips with pawpaw ointment prior to applying the product.

I wore the kiss proof lips product for approximately 6-8 hours on the second occasion and found that my lips were actually drier after doing my normal lip routine which actually gave better results with the lime crime velvetines. Also, contrary to the packaging, not kiss proof and infact smudged everywhere. Time to dry was approximately 4 minutes.

This morning I had the pleasure of attending a Smitten Cosmetics training day. As someone who does a lot of networking within the makeup/ beauty industry this company is one I've had my eye on for a little while and I was absolutely delighted when I was asked by the CEO, Caroline Stanbury to attend her training day and have a look at the products before I purchased.

First of all, Caroline is one of the sweetest ladies I've had the pleasure of meeting this year and I was so excited and nervous to meet her! The product range is simply stunning. 

Caroline comes from a beauty therapy background and the company has both a skincare range as well as a makeup range. The new whipped range is truly innovative and is something that even someone with not much of an idea about makeup could use to do amazing makeup!

Fibre lashes is something that a lot of people are talking about at the moment, I'm sure everyone has seen the tarantula looking formula that has been plastered all over Facebook, instagram and twitter. If you are anything like me the constant shots of clumpy badly applied fibre mascara are enough to make you step away from it like the plague! I was assured by Caroline that the formula was different and so I gave it a go on my willing model. I have to say I was completely and utterly impressed. I had fibre lashes applied also and I'm now at 4 hours later with no loose fibres all over the face. 

The whipped collection all in all is fantastic. I'm loving the finish as well as the feel of the whole collection. I've linked the youtube video of my model for today having her fibre lashes put on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpdCRmbNxGk

The lovely Shakira has the whipped foundation in honey, the whipped illuminator, whipped blush in glimmer, whipped eye colour in spirited and sunshine, the mineral eyeshadows in happiness and sunshine, the liquid liner pen (which is one of the best liquid liner pens I've tried), lip liner in pout, lipstick in sassy and layered with lipgloss in gold goddess.