Down the Yellow Brick Road Part II: Salon, supermarket and Judy Garland

Previously - Part I : The night before.

When I woke up annoyingly early on the morning of my wedding, I was still surprisingly calm. I did have butterflies, but only tiny ones...not even as bad as the ones I used to get when I had swimming class at school (I was scared of the teacher, and scared that I'd be pushed under by someone because I never mastered how to be underwater without holding my nose). I got up, posted my blog, took a photo of the fantastically blue sky, ate breakfast - yes, I did, I was HUNGRY - and woke up BFF Ruby Slippers. I stuck on some Beach Boys to perk us up (mostly because we'd done ABBA to death over the past few weeks) and we bopped around packing last-minute stuff to the strains of "I Get Around" and "Good Vibrations". Man, I love those Beach Boys. Then Sister Slippers arrived. Photo op!

It was very bright, hence my eyes being closed. That, and I'm notorious for closing my eyes in photos. Either way, I should have gone the sunglasses route like sister RS.

Sister RS also presented her dog-bitten cheek for inspection. Three days before the wedding she was saying hello to one of her dogs through her gate, and someone walked past. The dog leaped forward to bark, and snapped her cheek in the process. Great. Now I had a wounded bridesmaid! I thought about expelling her from the bridal party for her carelessness...but that would have made the numbers uneven. I can't believe this would happen to me on MY DAAAAYYY!!

Just kidding. I do love those crazy brides who make it all about themselves, though. Anyway, my fabtastic makeup friendor, Mel, was able to cover the cut almost entirely. I don't think it'll show
in any of the photos. It certainly doesn't in the family/friend ones.

Then it was off to the salon! Megan, my hairstylist, already had a picture of how I wanted my hair done, from my mini-semi-trial the week before. I mentioned it before here. Anyway, to recap, suffice it to say my hair does not hold curls. Megan tried curling tongs and one of her colleagues tried something else (hot rollers, I think) on the other side of my head. Both looked beautiful when they came out, and both fell flat five minutes later. By the time I got home (five minute drive) you'd swear that nothing had ever been done to my hair. So at least we had that vague trial (which she didn't charge me for, since it was only supposed to be a discussion of what I wanted. Very sweet of her) in which to find out that my hair sucks, and to come up with a new plan.

Here we all are in the salon, eagerly awaiting our beautifying.

Whoa, cleavage!


It looked to me like they had somehow "lost" BFF RS' appointment, which is weird since I confirmed them the week before when I was there, but they called someone over - the same guy who did my make-up for my e-shoot, actually - and said it was all fine. I'm sure they lost it, though! Anyway, it all worked out well, so I let it wash over me. Zen bride over here.

Here they are partway through my hair. I must admit I do enjoy getting my hair done (ie, played with).
You may remember that Megan offered to come out to the venue later to finish off my hair then, so that it could have every possible moment in curlers. Our appointment was at 9am, and we were all done by 10:25, so we trotted across the parking lot to the supermarket and stocked up on water, yoghurt and fizzy drinks (for the others). We were also a bit excited to see some Jaffa Cake equivalents for sale, because these are impossible to find here. Both Sister RS and BFF RS ADORE Jaffa Cakes, as does Mr RS! I like them but I'm not in love with them like those other three are. So we stocked up on a few boxes of those. I wish I'd got photos! And pictures of the odd looks I got in my curlers, too. I didn't care, though! I was getting MARRIED today!

Then it was home to pick up the dresses, overnight bags, general wedding paraphernalia and coolerbox. Because Mr RS was coming on his own later on and we were staying overnight, I wouldn't need to take my car. But BFF and Sister Slippers would each need their own so they could leave when they wanted to. I decided to travel with BFF because she said she had something on her iPod she wanted me to hear.

I have to say, that was one of the most fun car rides I have ever had. The thing BFF RS wanted me to listen to was Judy Garland and Ethel Merman doing the duet from Call me Madam "I hear singing and there's no one there/You don't need analyzing". I was totally excited, because I'm in love with Judy; and Ethel, while brash and brassy, is just such an icon that I can't help but enjoy her. In the movie, she does the duet with Donald O'Connor (love him!), but it was so much more fun to hear two of the great belters doing it together! I just tried to find this on youtube and failed, so goodness knows where BFF RS got the audio clip from.

After hearing that song, we were completely in Judy mode, so I lined up some of her most fun, perker-upper numbers, and we sang all the way to The Moon & Sixpence (my favourite is Judy's version of Purple People Eater - what a scream!). It was the best thing we could have done. I had more fun than I'd had in weeks on that drive (Judy plus singing; a winning combination, and it was so much fun to sing with someone who knows all the words too!). I arrived feeling happy, bouncy and not nervous at all. We got our key and opened up the honeymoon suite, which is where we girls were to get ready. Here are BFF and Sister Slippers in the room when we arrived:
BFF had a partial updo, and Sister RS, whose recently-cut hair was too short for anything like that, just had a poofy blow wave.

And here I am, still in curlers, hanging my dress on the bedpost! Don't you love that the hangings look like veils? Mmmm.

I was playing around with photoshop to try and crisp up some of these images (you should see what they looked like before!) and I thought this one looked nice in a soft black & white.

Next up: Decor!