To be completely honest, during the initial phases of wedding planning I did not want a "beauty vendor." Unfortunately, I had watched several friends and relatives have negative experiences where they looked nothing like themselves on their wedding day and some of them even removed the makeup and changed their hair themselves. While these vendors were perfectly nice and perhaps the styles of makeup would have been great for someone else, it just seemed like something I could easily skip. About a year into wedding planning, I thought it would be nice to offer hair and makeup services to my bridesmaids if they wanted it, even if I was most likely going to do my own hair and makeup. I was hoping to find a "beauty vendor" that matched our style, which I realize now doesn't make a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense to choose your other vendors based on your personal style but for a "beauty vendor" you really want someone who listens and can match your style, but also can do the same for others. In my search I saw a lot of beautiful websites and some positive reviews but nothing really eased my concerns that while these looks may for work for others, that I and my bridesmaids would feel like ourselves on my wedding day.

I was initially drawn to Janelle on Location because I saw pictures of some of her beautiful clients. I loved how their hair and makeup looked but that wasn't what actually made me change my mind and feel comfortable enough to book. Janelle's whole philosophy really spoke to me -- that her goal is to make her clients look like themselves on their wedding day and that she will work with you to make that come true. We scheduled a call and Janelle carefully listened to me, which is enormously important to gather enough information to make someone look like themselves, and that's actually quite a unique and an incredible skill. In addition, it became clear in the call that Janelle had lots of experience and was able to help me articulate with words what it was that I liked. Janelle is so talented because not only does she have the skills when it comes to doing hair and makeup, she also has the equally essential people skills like empathy and listening which make her so good at executing her clients' visions.

Janelle stayed in touch with me and she was really open to any changes I wanted to make throughout my time planning my wedding. I really loved that Janelle normalized the process of making changes after my trial because it made me feel comfortable offering feedback, something that I think can be really hard for lots of people. It wasn't a question of whether or not I wanted changes, but what changes I wanted.

On my wedding day, Janelle and her team were incredibly professional. They arrived right on time, and they just had a wonderful energy. My morning felt so relaxed and I had a great time.

I would recommend JOL to anyone!

I wanted someone that would bring out the natural beauty of the important women in my life and to help me feel like myself on my wedding day. I don't usually wear a lot of make up or do a lot of hair styling so I wanted to trust my beauty vendor to keep me recognizable in my wedding photos. I found a lot of vendors that did standard "wedding hair" and "wedding make up" but not many that looked like they had stylists with the same general vibe that I have. I didn't find many that I felt like would hear what I was shooting for and understand how to execute. I've known Janelle for a VERY long time and knew that I could trust her. She is just the best and really understands how to highlight each persons features. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I wanted and Janelle and her stylists were so helpful in getting the general gist. We had one test run which was so helpful to narrow things down and just went for it day of on the hair and make up. Literally could not have asked for better in dealing with the pre-wedding process. Day of Janelle was absolutely incredible. She was working individually and got the hair and make up right for all 9 of us. Everyone felt beautiful and she did a wonderful job executing my wedding look without ever doing a trial run. Cannot recommend her enough. She stayed calm cool and collected all day which helped my nerves tremendously.

We used Janelle on Location for wedding day hair, makeup, and massage services for myself, my seven bridesmaids, my mom, and my mother-in-law. We all loved the massages (for obvious reasons), but we also loved our hair and makeup. I had quite a diverse crowd, and EVERYONE felt stunning. JOL was able to service all types of hair and skin, which was a concern for me as I was "shopping around" and noticing a lack of diversity in other vendors' sample photos. I think the secret to Janelle's success is that her mission is to make you look like the best version of yourself. In order to do this, she had me send her pictures of my day-to-day self, and we worked on how we could enhance this for the wedding day. She was honest and told me certain hairstyles I was interested in might feel odd because they fell differently on my face than how I naturally wore my hair. She would've totally done those hairstyles had I wanted her to, but I appreciated how she was intentional on making sure I understood the reality of styles while I was brainstorming. This knowledge comes from her years and years of hair and makeup experience. Further, JOL went above and beyond during multiple consultations before the big day and a hair and makeup trial within my home. The trial lasted for hours, and the lead stylist, Sara, was eager to try any and all types of eyeshadow and hair twists that I could think of. JOL truly comes alongside you to make sure your hair and makeup is on point. On top of their high quality services, everyone I worked with (Janelle, Sara, and Sheila) was so thoughtful and kind. My wedding morning was a relaxed, joyful, and fun environment. I would highly recommend them!