Thursday, February 28, 2013

Winter weddings, upcoming projects

Hello blog followers, future clients, friends, etc!
This winter and spring I've seen a shift towards booking non-traditional days. I have my first-ever Wednesday wedding this March (3/13/13, anniversary of day they met too), lots of Fridays and Sundays (like a LOT), and more winter weddings than ever. In December I had 4 weddings, January there were 3, and February has brought 2. Also non-wedding work for me has been all over the place: many boudoir sessions/marathons, a TON of trials for future brides, lessons for people who want some new ideas or have no idea :), makeup for a news appearance, makeup (and light hair) for a black tie event, and some really fun things coming up soon.
Sometimes when we get a niche in an industry, it can render us doing similar things a lot. And I LOVE that niche and I really love doing sweet and saucy wedding looks. I also want to stay fresh as an artist, to inspire coming trends and be inspired by changes in fashion and launches in products. To keep on top of this, we have to push ourselves WAY out of our comfort zone. So I decided to put together a group photo shoot with a couple photographers, a fashion stylist, a couple hair stylists and a few makeup artists to push us all out of our comfort zone (we are all wedding specialists, except for the fashion stylist). I am so excited to get some new pictures that will hopefully look like they are more runway inspired than aisle inspired. Stay tuned for that.
In other upcoming projects, I will be shooting my first national magazine spread and cover this coming week for Muscle and Fitness Hers magazine. You never know what every day brings when you get hired for this type of job and that's what keeps it exciting...a little bit scary and will always keep me on my toes. The one thing you leave out of your kit that day will absolutely be the one thing you need the most. And of course you end up using about 6 products out of your several kits that you bring...such an adventure. Those pics will come in a few months.
Also this winter I have had the pleasure of getting to be close friends with 2 fellow artists in town (and another artist I have already been close with- in case she's reading this!). It's awesome to relate on such a specific level to really wonderful women- and let's just say that we happen to be a tongue-in-cheek lot, as many artists tend to be. On that note, my friend and colleague Kelli Ramey (hello!) has gotten me involved recently in Dress for Success. We will begin to do weekly classes with the consumers soon. Kelli did an AMAZING job collecting a TON of products for them and today we spent a couple hours organizing (for those who have worked with me, you know my penchant for a label maker) the bags and bags of donations. Giving back and making people feel wonderful about themselves and also the way they look (of course) is what inspires me to keep doing this.
This isn't makeup related at all, but the other charity I have been an active member of for 4 years is Harmony Project: www.harmonyproject.com. We raise money for the community, give our time to help improve it, and sing to inspire others to do the same (and it's fun music too, not traditional choir music AT ALL). We will be performing at the Southern Theatre in mid-May. I would love for you to come and see/hear what we do. I promise you will not be disappointed! Tickets always sell out though, so buy them as soon as they go on sale.
And now, I leave you with a couple pics of the beautiful winter brides I had the pleasure of doing makeup on: