Hi everyone! On Saturday, April 29th I attended my friend Natasha’s wedding at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

It’s been the event of the year for me because I count Natasha as one of my closest friends, and I couldn’t wait to finally witness and celebrate one of my best friends from high school getting married. Me, Natasha (top right), Nicole, and Mikell were a super close four-person group at Laguardia and we’ve known each other for 13 years to date!

I was super excited to attend the first wedding of our group, and believe it or not, this is the first wedding I’ve ever been personally invited to. So, I decided to create a photo diary or the big day, including my makeup, hair, dress, and of course, pictures of the bride.

MAKEUP

I’ve attended two proms and looked terrible at both. In fact, my senior prom was miserable in large part because I hated the way the “artist” at MAC did my makeup, which is what motivated me to learn to beautify myself. All things, considered it’s important for me to love my makeup, especially on a day like this. I was inspired by Stila’s new Magnificent Metals to do a beautiful glittery neutral smokey eye and I was very happy with how it turned out. I considered using the glitters more heavily but decided that subtle was a better way to go at a wedding.

I used the shades Golden Goddess and Smoky Storm and the Tarte Light of the Party Collector’s Makeup Case (purchased in 2015) to achieve my smokey eye.

How do I clean up?

OUTFIT

I wore a lavender off-the-shoulder formal gown from ASOS, which you can view in greater detail by going to my post on potential wedding guest outfits. For my shoes, I chose this pair of ankle strap nude heels from Aldo and I kept my jewelry minimal and chic. I wore my favorite pave bracelet from J. Crew, a pair of statement earrings from Forever 21, and a simple gold ring with rhinestones from Aldo.

NAILS

I’m still new to the world of nails, and I have no clue where to go for more upscale manicures so I got a classic one-color manicure during my lunch break at work and decided to go with Essie Ballet Slippers as a nice neutral color. I added manicure stickers by Essence from Ulta to the ring finger as an accent nail, and I really like how it turned out.

HAIR

I loved the way my hair was done for my senior ball at college and ultimately, I decided to use the same photo inspiration of Miley Cyrus’ messy bun at the Oscars 2010 for this occasion.

Actress and singer Miley Cyrus arrives at the 82nd Academy Awards in Hollywood, March 7, 2010. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (UNITED STATES) (OSCARS-ARRIVALS – Tags: ENTERTAINMENT)

I loved the bed-head tousled look of it and I think my friend Nicole’s friend Kathy did a great job styling it at my Senior Ball.

I was curious to see whether another stylist’s touch might provide a welcome change, so I decided to try Dreamdry at the Columbus Circle location. It is a specialty blow dry bar, but they advertise that you can bring any updo photo to the appointment and the stylists will recreate it.

I have mixed feelings about the result. I liked my stylist a lot, and I loved the way they updo turned out in the back but I didn’t like how it looked in the front. First, the gorgeous bun:

Can you hear angels singing?

Yikes. This is really how it looked when I was paying and took a selfie to see how my hair looked from head-on. Unfortunately, from the front my hair just looked odd. It was weirdly puffy and there was a really unnatural look to it. I was disappointed that from straight-on you can’t even see that there’s a bun in the back.

Luckily throughout the day I kind of smoothed it down and tugged at it a little so that it deflated and sat more naturally on my head. On a random note, I kind of wish I had gone with a more neutral pink color for my lips.