All the girly things

I'm not girly. Well, not very girly. I do love handbags and designer clothing...but not the terribly girly version of either one. I still wear Converse on a daily basis and while in Japan, my big gift to myself was a kids t-shirt with a giant sumo wrestler on the front. I wear this stuff in public. No shame. I am also...an adult.

Needless to say, there's something about this whole 'wedding' thing that has me wanting to look more refined...polished...lady like. I'm not trying to be someone I'm not...just a more refined version of me. Instead of Diet Coke in the can...I'll try and drink it out of a glass bottle. Still me, different container.

Besides all the dress buying, there's one more area that scares the bajeezus (it's a word today) out of me. Makeup. I don't own it, I don't wear it, I don't get it.

Seriously. I'm 27 and don't own any makeup. I owned some for a while, I got it as a gift, but it expired before my engagement shoot, so I threw it away. I knew I had to do something so I didn't look like a shiny grease-ball in my photos, so I inquired. I'm not ashamed...I don't know anything about makeup, so I asked the expert. Christina (of Mportraits) is not only an amazing photographer, but also a professional make up artist. I asked her what I should do in regard to preparing to look...more refined...for the engagement shoot. I figured this would help for not only this situation, but for the wedding as well. Christina let me know that she'd help me out and just to get MAC's 'studio fix' powder. Easy enough.

When the dude and I actually made it to the mall to register (seriously, going to the mall is out of the norm for us), I made sure we took a second to swing by MAC so I could pick up this powder stuff. We were promptly mauled by a sales person who asked 'What can I help you with?' I let her know that I wanted this 'Studio Fix' stuff. She was shocked that I didn't know what color I want. Don't you just have one called 'super white?' She did some tests on me and picked out a color. Super. Done.

Wait...she wants to sell me more...here come the questions.

"What look are you going for?"
"I don't know"
"What do you want the feel to be?"
"I don't know...me?"
"Do you want to try blush?"
"No"
"Seriously? You're going to look washed out in your photos"
"Oh, well, um, ya know, my photographer..."
"You really should have more, this powder will wash you out, you'll look like a ghost"
***heart starts racing, what are you talking about? I just want my powder and no one gets hurt***

***I start sweating, I gotta get out of here***

Somehow I go blank and manage to get to the counter and pay for JUST the studio fix and RUN out of the store. Scary!

Some people fear jean shopping. Makeup stores, beauty stores, scare the DAYLIGHTS out of me.

Christina didn't end up adding anything to me during our engagement shoot. I put on the Studio Fix before we left the house and only applied my Dr. Pepper Bonne Bell lip gloss about 7 times throughout the 4 hour shoot (what? I'm telling you...I act like a child sometimes. Plus I'm addicted to chapstick!)

Engagement Photo beauty necessities (for me)

Hairbrush (used twice)


MAC Studio Fix (applied once, at the beginning)


Dr. Pepper Bonne Bell Chapstick (applied like a crack addict)

I feel like these three products did wonders to turn me into this:

(Mportraits)

I have no idea how I'm going to prepare for my big day. I will likely have to hire some poor soul to put makeup on my twitchy face.

That being said, I do have some inspiration for how I'd like to look:

Not the hair, just the makeup


Again, not the hair...the makeup

Like I said, I just want to be the glass diet coke bottle version of my canned version self.

What did you do for your engagement/wedding? Did you hire someone, or have you been using makeup long enough to know what you're doing and not break out in a sweat?