To Trial or Not to Trial...

I didn’t do a trial and didn’t have any regrets about that! But I also wasn’t picky about the look I wanted.

To me that is wild. Usually the trial is less than the day of service.

These places are expensive I agree but you take the risk of how you look day off. I would suggest looking at their social media pages and maybe have them recreate a look they like.

I’m getting a trial. Many of the HAMU vendors I looked at gave discounted trial prices. The vendor I ended up booking has package pricing which is actually much lower than what I was expecting to pay.
Have you checked out Thumbtack or even Instagram? I found my HAMU artist through insta then found them on WW and they had good reviews.

Good luck!!

View Quoted Comment I found so many and the top three that I liked all had the same price for a trial as the day-of service. Nuts!

View Quoted Comment I feel like I’ve done nothing but spend the last several hours of several days looking at Instagram and Facebook. It’s a rabbit hole! Haha

View Quoted Comment Ive never heard of Thumbtack, but I’ll check it out. And yes, I’ve spent so much time looking on social media and messaging people directly to find out their are either already booked (wedding is 8 months out) or they work for one of the companies I’m looking at and I have to go through the company.

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Yasssss so is venue shopping ha ha ha. It is a rabbit hole and I get it is scary because you want to look good. I am thinking of splurging for the trial just to make sure I do not look busted lol.

I might catch some flack for this, but maybe you could try a local beauty college? A lot of students would jump at an opportunity to do a bridal updo. At least for a trial run, and then you could take photos and have your HAMUA do it just like that on the day-of? (Sorry everyone, I don't know the full etiquette on this. I am a cosmetologist so I support going to schools sometimes. Maybe not for the day-of, but for trials, sure.)

View Quoted Comment That’s definitely not a bad idea! There’s a Paul Mitchell school in Knoxville!

The trial being the same price as the actual day-of definitely seems high, phew! I think you need to ask yourself a couple things: how intricate/simple is the look that I want for my wedding day? and how set am I on having this look vs flexible?

I did have a trial, and it was more like an additional $50-$75 to add on to the price of the day-of, but looking back, I honestly would've been fine without it. I had an idea and a handful of pictures saved on pinterest and she nailed my makeup immediately and we only had to do one minor change from the first trial hairstyle that literally took her 5 minutes to do. That being said I was thinking a very simple half up/down hairstyle and more neutral makeup (and being someone who doesn't do my own hair and makeup very often, I was just amazed they could make me look like that and wasn't as set on one specific look lol)