Salon vs On Site at Venue for Makeup/hair?

How far away is the ceremony site from the salon? I initially considered doing my hair/makeup in salon but it was an hour away from the church, and even with sitting in the car I was worried my hair and makeup would be smudged or out of place. It is a lot less stress having it done onsite, but if travel is not long then it should be okay. Just be prepared to allot a lot of time for driving to/from any given place the day of.

Hello thanks for your response! The salon is 10 minutes away from the venue!

Gotcha, you would definitely be fine then, go with the salon you want! As a PP mentioned, take into account any getting ready photos, but you will probably be putting your dress on at the venue anyway. Talk with your photographer about what they can do, mine said that they could do getting ready photos after we had actually gotten ready, there would just be a few photos of someone holding up a makeup brush or something after everything was done. Plus in my experience, most brides don't want photos pre-makeup and hair anyway.

For my wedding, I wanted to have hair and makeup done on site for two reasons - it was cheaper and easier. I got married in a rather touristy area with very limited free parking. To have gone to the salon in that area would have been insanely expensive because they would've had to pay for hair and makeup and parking. Instead, I paid the travel fee for our hair and makeup artist to travel from a different area. It was also easier because it eliminated any travel for my bridal party or I because we got married at a hotel and most of the bridal party stayed the night before after our rehearsal dinner so the next morning all they had to do was come downstairs to the bridal suite to get their hair and makeup done at their scheduled time. So I didn't have to worry about making arrangements for traveling to and from the wedding venue or worry if we ran behind schedule. Our venue also included a bridal suite for free in our package so we had a place to get ready.

For my brother's wedding, my sister-in-law forgot about hair and makeup until about a month before her wedding. It just completely slipped her mind. She didn't want getting ready photos so my mom, sister, grandmother and I went to one place and my sister-in-law and her mom went to another. We were unable to find a salon that could do everyone's hair because we were booking at the last minute. It seemed to work out just fine. We all got back to the church at roughly the same time and got changed together. The photographer was there taking detail photos, but no actual getting ready photos were taken. I think as long as you plan correctly either option can work.

Since it's only 10 minutes away, you should be fine. The salon I'm using actually has a private room that they're going to put us in that day anyway (we made the appointment pre-covid and have postponed this until 2021, but as far as I know this is still true). Even if the salon you chose doesn't have a private room, I'm sure they'll put you next to each other so you shouldn't have a problem getting the pictures you want. Just make sure you have a plan for who (and what) is going in each car, so there will be no problems with the transportation logistics.