My Easter Weekend Brides!

This Easter weekend was a very special one for me - I got to style not just 1 but 2 Natural brides!!!!! I count myself truly blessed because this time last year, if someone had said I'd be doing this, I'd have laughed out loud - I had a completely different plan for myself which involved a 9 - 5 in someone else's office but somehow no matter how hard I tried, that wasn't working out and this kept coming to the fore and needless to say here I am!

 It is a lot of hard work running a business in Nigeria what with the light issues, staff that think they're doing you a favor, fuel issues and a host of other problems but the satisfaction and joy I get at the end of the day when my back hurts and my feet are throbbing; cannot be compared to anything I'd get from a 9 - 5.

Anyhoo! So this weekend I got the privilege to style two beautiful but very different brides and their differences could not be more evident as it was in their hair style choices.

BRIDE NUMERO UNO

Has a cute lil' afro - her hair is not long enough to be put into a bun but can be twisted, woven and didi'd. She came in with a few pictures she wanted to try out and immediately I determined she wanted braids or a faux loc look as those were pretty much most of what was in the pictures she'd shown me.

Some of Bride 1's Inspiration

So the first issue that we needed to decide was whether she was going with braids or faux locs. After discussing and looking through more pictures, she decided to have faux locs installed as braids were something she did constantly anyway so she wanted something different for her big day.

So a few days to her big day (which was Saturday the 19th) we had the faux locs done - now I think we'd underestimated the length she wanted plus the time we were working with because they took much longer than we'd planned and she eventually had to do it over a course of 2 days. The first day we started early afternoon and she had to leave a few hours later so it had to be completed the following day.

Anyway a few days to the wedding I asked where I was coming to style her hair and she said.......... (drum roll) EGBEDA. I think my heart did a little flip because I had been so excited I'd neglected to find out where she would be.

Firstly I had no clue where it was or how to get there, secondly the wedding was at 9 am which meant I had to get there early enough to be done by half 7. I was a little concerned but determined to see everything through. Now, I wasn't going to be searching for a place I did not know by myself in the wee hours of the morning so I decided to get a cab guy to come and get me.

The plan was go leave my house at 5.15am so by 6 I'd be in Egbeda (hopefully). So after a backbreaking day at the salon on Good Friday (where it seemed EVERYONE decided to come get their hair done loll) I got home, had dinner, set my alarm for 4.30am  and literally passed out in my bed. Woke up in the morning, excited and nervous and got ready - my cab guy got there right on time so we set off with my little 'styling bag' in tow.

We got to Egbeda and I got to work on her hair. Unfortunately because we ran a little late when we installed the faux locs, we hadn't had time to actually practice the hair style on her and I was a little nervous about this because it is one thing to have a style in mind and a completely different thing for it to come out the way you envisioned after execution.

I had 2 styles in mind - one was a series of 'pin curl' like rolls on the side of her head while the other consisted of 2 cinnamon rolls on the side and a high twisted bun on top. I tried the pin curls and immediately discarded the idea as it was looking too heavy for her small face and features. I tried the cinnamon rolls and that looked divine!

Finished up the look, put in her hair piece and we were good to go! I set off back to the island and to a long day at work but I had a huge smile on my face!!!! I was thoroughly pleased.


BRIDE NUMERO DOS

The first thing she said to me was she didn't want to add any extensions to her hair and wanted a simple yet elegant style. She showed me pictures which all featured one thing - 2 large flat twists (or Dutch braids) and a 'fancy' bun in the back. This time around, I was able to do a few practice runs with her till we decided on the look we were going with.

Her Inspiration for her style.

Her wedding was on Easter Monday at 10 am and since she lived in Dolphin this was going to be a whole lot easier for me :)

Got to her for 6.30 am, and she'd washed, deep conditioned and blow dried her hair the day before and left them in plaits. I did another blow dry after applying heat protectant to her hair to get it to stretch even further and then went to work.

Blow Dried and ready for styling.

I'd originally planned on rolling, tucking and pinning the hair in the back but when I saw the hair pins she'd bought, I figured pin curl like creations would be better to show off the pearls in the pins.

Hair curled and pinned

Side view showing flat twists

I had so much fun doing this hair and watching her get dressed by her mum while she was being prayed for was one of the most moving things I'd ever witnessed. There was not a dry eye in there.

Final Look

So that was my weekend - I could not have asked for more!