Today we’re going to have a look at Heather and Jeremy’s beautiful autumn affair.  They had picked one of those super-sought after wedding dates – to be specific, 9/10/11 – so, she was smart in booking me many many months in advance.  That turned out to be a super popular date to get married!  I mean, it makes sense.  It would be reeeealy hard to forget your anniversary when you pick a day like that.

I digress.

Heather is the cutest thing.  Her energy is fantastic.  She’s like a blonde dynamo of fun energy and we had an absolute blast working together.  She is fun fun fun from head to toe.  So I prepped her and her bridal party at the Nu Hotel in Brooklyn, which is a great space to get ready in.  They had a super cool sunken-in bed situation that just looked amazingly modern and cozy.

For her makeup, I airbrushed her for super perfect skin, and then on her eyes we did a lovely gold shimmery palette to really pop her eyes.  I used a lot of brown liner to really make them stand out.

Check me out, all focused and hard at work….

Don’t those lashes look real!?!?  Amazing and gorgeous, right?

There’s me applying the finishing touches….

And voila!  Doesn’t she look like a life-sized Barbie?  I mean that in the nicest possible way!!!  Just adorable.

Right before the first look…I love the look on her face here!

Then everyone piled into cars and whatnot and traveled out to Long Island to the venue, Milleridge Cottage, which I’ve never been to, but it looks lovely.  I had done 7 ladies’ makeup in total, all by my lonesome – a conflict came up last minute with my assistant.  So that was a bit rough, but 7 was perfectly workable.

Obligatory cake shot because I LOVE cake!!!!  Pretty!!!!

Looks like you guys had an amazing, wonderful time!  Thanks so much for having me on board that day, and a huge congrats to you both!!!

Special thanks to the amazing Daniel Kreiger for such fantastic images!

Prep location: Nu Hotel, Brooklyn

Venue: Milleridge Cottage, Long Island

Here is one of the loveliest ladies around – Melissa.  Melissa and her friend Jackie came to me to do their trials together, as they were only getting married a few months apart – and we all had a blast working together.  I’m really looking forward to seeing both Jackie and Melissa again in a few months, when it’s Jackie’s turn!  So fun.

Here she is with her mom.  She seems calm, right?  Well – I was amazed, because she really was….despite the fact that a full-on hurricane was heading it’s way up to NYC, right in time for her ceremony.  I would have been freaking out, but Melissa just kept smiling and rolling with it.  From what I understand, there were some major last-minute changes made, due to the weather, but based on how much fun it looks like they had, I don’t think they minded!

How gorgeous is she?  What is her secret to that perfect skin!?!?!  I didn’t have to use much foundation on her at all, and mainly focused on bringing out her eyes with warm, shimmery, coppery/gold tones.  Absolutely stunning on her.  Because her skin is so pretty, any color I put on her just looked amazing – and ladies, that is the ultimate secret to makeup.  The more perfect the canvas is that you start with, the prettier the overall look will be.  That’s why good skincare is sooo important.

Every photo is just gorgeous, pure joy and love emanating from everyone.  Really lovely emotions captured by Zlatko Batistich – he’s so good!  The facial expressions he captures are really remarkable.

It really looks like she had an amazing, fairytale, hurricane-fabulous wedding.  And she deserves it, she is a TOTAL sweetheart.

And there were bubbles.  SO FUN!  Congrats you guys!

I love love love this wedding!  Katerina and Drew had a gorgeous and chic Brooklyn wedding earlier this year.  Their style super sharp!  And I love all of their photos – editorial quality for sure.

I loved working with her because she’s a huge fan of blush, a cosmetic product many women fear or don’t use at all.  Blush is super important – especially in photos, otherwise you can look super washed out.  Katerina is actually wearing a pretty deep red cream blush, with a hot pink powder blush on top.  In person, she had gorgeous, flushed cheeks – but if you’ll notice, in the photos they don’t look super rosy.  Something to always remember is that the makeup will always look like it’s a lot less heavy in photos then it does in real life.  The trick is finding the perfect balance.

Katerina has a really unique, fierce beauty, and I love that.  Her skin is super freckly and beautiful.  I hardly used any foundation on her at all because her skin is already super nice.  Some girls like to cover their freckles but I hate doing that…it’s part of your uniqueness, so embrace it!  Also if you try to cover all your freckles you’re going to look like you’re wearing a mask.  There’s really no point.

Check out all the personalization they did.  All the paper art was really lovely.

A big shout out to The Green Building – one of the coolest, prettiest venues in Brooklyn.  A great space.

And who doesn’t love a candy station?  Adorable.

Coolest rings!

And for your viewing pleasure, more of their fabulous day….

Congrats you two!!!

Makeup: Anni Bruno with NYC Faces
Hair: The Parlour Brooklyn
Photography: Brookelyn Photography
Flowers: Verde Flowers
Venue: The Green Building
DJ: 74 Events

Now, this is actually a difficult post for me to write.  Much like loving parents never choose a favorite child, I love all my clients equally.  But Marielle is one of those gals that just makes me LOVE what I do.  And her wedding was, as you’ll see, nothing short of Fairytale Spectacularness.

Here’s me finishing off her skin with the airbrush gun.  We’re clearly having an awesome time already.

Here’s me blending out the concealer under her eyes.

I love this close-up – you can really see the eyeshadow colors we used.  Funny story that I have to share:  When Marielle first came to me, I think she wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for.  So I gave her what I thought was best for her – a shimmery, peachy/beige eye and black precision eyeliner.  I thought she looked great, but I could tell she was unsure….so later, we tried a very different look.  She wanted to see a more blended and smokey eye, using deep plums and burgundies.  So we settled on that look instead.

The day of the wedding, she tells me she’s changed her mind and wants to do shimmery gold/bronze tones.  Now, I normally don’t love the idea of trying a totally new look on the bride right before her wedding – but she seemed absolutely sure that’s what we wanted, so we went for it.  And she loved it!  I was thrilled.

The thing was with Marielle, she’s such a gorgeous girl – and with her skin tone, features, and hair color – pretty much any makeup style I decided to put on her was going to look fantastic.  With her, it really did come down to a matter of personal preference.  I was so thrilled we ended up nailing it.

And um, her dress was GlamPrincessOMGAmazing.  Yes that’s a new word I made up, purely to describe her gown.  Her wedding makes me want to make up all new adjectives.

Yep, it’s a castle. Amazing.

Here she is with her sister – another fabulous human being.

Is she running through a labyrinth?  Is David Bowie there?  Seriously, this shot is straight out of a magazine – beautiful work by the very talented Shelly Kroeger.

And in this one, she’s Juliet on the balcony.  Come ON people.  It was really, really hard to pare down her photo album, they were all so gorgeous.

Timothy, even tho we never did get the chance to meet, unfortunately, I just wanted to let you know you are a super lucky dude to marry this super awesome chick.  Congrats you guys.

Meet Andrea.  Her wedding this past July was on a super hot day!  Thank goodness for airbrush makeup technology!  Andi came to me through a colleague of mine, Joseph, of NY Curly Bride - a genius with bridal styles involving curls.

I loved meeting Andrea and hanging out with her and her bridesmaids that morning.  Andi is British, so I got to reminisce with her about my time spent in the UK, which I could talk about forever.

The look she was going for is a really clean, classic look.  Strong black eyeliner was applied with precision and sharp edges to really frame her eyes (no smokiness at all.)  Her shadow colors were neutral and matte, and very complimentary to her skin tone.  And of course, perfect skin as always – a must!

Here’s me applying her lipliner.  A tip for everyone – never just line the lips with your liner.  Line them and then fill them in with the pencil.  This prevents the dreaded visible lipliner situation -not pretty.

She has the prettiest eyes ever, right?  Gorgeous gal!!

Here she is with her lovely bridesmaids – it was great working with everyone!

Thanks so much Andrea, I had a blast that day, and I hope you did too.  Congrats to you and Jesse!

Makeup: Anni Bruno with NYC Faces
Hair: NY Curly Bride
Photography: Talisman Photo
Venue: The Green Building

How gorgeous is this couple!?!?  I can’t even stand it.  Katie made my job super easy that day.  So, thanks!!!

Katie found me on Brooklyn Bride many moons ago for her September wedding.  We ended up doing a second trial run, actually, just to make sure there were no major changes in skin tone – she also wanted to go with a more dramatic, smokier eye than we had done previously – and I’m so glad we made that adjustment, it really suited her amazingly well.

They got married at The Pratt House on the Upper East Side.  Originally they’d booked the Montauk Club in Brooklyn, but they were shocked to discover that that venue would be covered top to bottom with ugly scaffolding during their wedding.  They didn’t want port-o-potties and construction rubbish in all of their wedding photos – hence the wise decision to switch venues.

Katie works in film and tv production, but she could totally have a career on-camera if she wanted, if you ask me!  And of course, because NYC is a small world, we found out that we have a friend in common.  Hi Courtney!  I love when that happens.

Amazing, gorgeous stuff you guys.  So nice to meet and work with you and your gals, thanks so much for having me on board that day, and congrats!!!!

Maggie and I met at this year’s Wedding Crashers event at The Bell House.  She told me that her wedding was also going to be held at The Bell House, one of the most beautiful and versatile venues in Brooklyn.  She also told me she’d be wearing a purple dress.  I was very very happy when she hired me, because these are all awesome things.

It was super cool to work there, as I feel sometimes like I live at that venue.  Between their live music, singalongs, dance parties, and other various events, I felt very at-ease in that space.  Also helpful was the fact that Maggie is a total sweetheart.

Thanks so much for having me on board and congrats!!!

This is Kyle’s sister Emily, showing off my work.  :)

Barbara is a super cool chick.  I was psyched to get to work with her.  And since we prepped her at her apartment, I actually got to meet the groom this time!  It’s a rare thing, which makes me kinda sad!  Usually I just see the boys afterwards in the photos.  But I got to chat with Jeff a bit and get to know him – he had this awesome billboard of every concert he’d seen in the past 15 years or so, and turns out we’d actually been to some of the same concerts.  Not just seen the same bands….actually been at the exact same shows as each other.  Small world.

These are seriously some of the sassiest, most fun wedding photos I’ve seen all year.  Looks like they had an absolute blast.  And isn’t she gorgeous!?!?  That hairstyle is to DIE for.  Nice work there.  And I’m sorry – but – bacon cupcakes?  OMG delish.  Well done!!!

A slight issue with the Montauk Club.  They wouldn’t let Barbara in to prep until I think about 2 hours before the wedding was slated to begin.  That obviously wasn’t enough time to do hair and makeup on the entire bridal party – so I prepped everyone except her at their apartment, packed up my gear, hopped a cab with them to the venue, set up my stuff in the bridal suite, and got to work on the bride.  Problem was, the car that was supposed to bring us to the venue was late, so we hopped into a yellow cab.  Which got lost.  Which made us late to the venue.  Which cut into Barbara’s makeup time.  This is why I strongly, strongly suggest the bride be in the second-to-last spot, rather than the last one – I hated having to rush thru her service.  BUT she still looked amazing!  I worked as fast as I could and ended up making her look as superfabulous as I possibly could.

Note to brides using the Montauk Club – if you can try to get into the venue earlier, I would recommend that.  I would also just basically recommend prepping everyone in one place.  Everyone will be happier and calmer, methinks.

Either way – who really cares…at the end of the day, they got married, had an awesome time, and looked fabulous doing it.  Success!!

A friend and colleague of mine, Ms. Katie Jane of Katie Jane Photography always had great things to say about A Practical Wedding.  It’s a wedding blog that doesn’t just focus on the wedding – but also talks about what happens after.  Be it one year, ten, or 50.

They’re also not scared to go into the more serious aspects of married life.  I really respect their approach – it’s a very mature, and (sorry) practical approach to many wedding-related topics.  I respect that this blog doesn’t just talk about what kind of shoes to wear – it delves so far beyond that and into the realities of married life.  A very good resource for people wanted to go bit deeper.

They just created a vendor listing on the site – and I am proud to be among the other awesome vendors that also took their mandatory “Sanity Pledge.”  Now, I would think that all the items of this list would go without saying….but I guess that’s not the case.  Either way, I was proud to agree with all of their philosophies and list myself among like-minded (sane) vendors.  Happy reading.

All APW-approved vendors, agree that:

… A wedding is an awesome party, but it’s the marriage that really matters.

… It takes two people to get married. It’s not all about the bride (and sometimes there isn’t a bride to begin with).

… We support LGBTQ couples right to marry, and we are delighted to work with them.

… We don’t charge a premium just because we heard the word “wedding.”

… We will be upfront and fair about our pricing. We won’t surprise you with a secret fee because you want frosting on the cake, not just the cake.

… You don’t have to have cake at your wedding.

… However you decided to tie the knot, we’re on your team.

… Weddings come in all different shapes/sizes/colors/budgets/etc., but as long as you two end up married to each other, it will have been a successful wedding.

Check out NYC Faces on APW here!

Man, do I love working with talented people.  The end result is always so fabulous!  I had the pleasure of teaming up with Sofia Negron (photographer) and Jackie Weppner (of Merci New York) to work on this adorable little nautically themed engagement shoot.

The team at Merci NYC did all the props and styling for the shoot.  An amazing yellow chunky Kate Spade necklace rounded out Trish’s fun, beach or boat-ready look.  And how genius is this – the flags here spell out Trish loves Rick in nautical symbols.  Adorable!

In terms of her makeup design, she’s a pretty low-key kinda gal.  So I wanted to make her look pretty and perfect without going overboard.  Using a medium weigh cream foundation to even out her skin, and pretty neutrals on the eyes, it was easy to make her look super gorgeous!

They’re a cute couple, aren’t they?  Thanks for having me on board that day!  Going out to Hoboken was such an adventure for me – It was cool to see Manhattan from the other side, for once!