TPR Bride Clare Mullen Shares Her Bridal Beauty Prep
As part of The Bridal Edit, our online resource for all your pre-wedding beauty tips, including what treatments to book and when, expert advice, and your very own complimentary bridal beauty checklist, we share the incredibly heartwarming stories of our TPR Brides so you too can be inspired and prepared as you plan ahead for your wedding day.
This week we speak with Clare Mullen, who within 7 months, planned and executed one of the most spectacular weddings in the Southern Highlands. With over 10 years of event planning under her belt, she worked with a dream list of vendors to help bring her vision of ‘a chic garden party filled with colour’ to life and we cannot be any more excited to share her story with you.
The Backstory
We were engaged in May 2021 and locked in our wedding for December that same year – if the difficulties of the last two years taught us anything, it was to take every opportunity as it comes and not waste time.
With that in mind, we swung into action and locked in our beautiful venue at Somerley House, followed by a dream list of vendors. It was the second venue we looked at and knew it was for us the minute we drove through the gates. There were so many beautiful spaces that allowed us to create our own guest journey that really felt like us.
Our guest list was 100 and overall, a very young crowd as we both have rather small families. We knew it would be one big party and it certainly didn’t disappoint!
The Inspiration…
After working in and planning events for the last 10 years, I had a clear vision for the day, which was a chic garden party filled with colour, wonderful company, and an atmosphere to match. Once we selected our venue and appointed Laice Bollen from LB Styling, everything fell into place. Laice was an angel and no task was to big or small for her!
Ed from Poho created a garden party wonderland that exceeded any of my floral expectations and Alex from The Blonde Butler delivered a menu of impeccable standards. Looking back on the planning processes and hiring of vendors, aim high, share your budget from the outset and work with people you trust to deliver on your vision.
The venue really did inspire my dress along with my hair & beauty approach – aiming for an effortless look (that felt like me) and lasted the day. I enlisted the wonderful Liatte Gordon for makeup and with one trial we had perfected the look. I had multiple hair colour appointments with Alisha Mortensen from Edwards & Co. in the lead-up, and she was there on the big day.
The Prep…
Skincare
We had scheduled our wedding and suddenly went into lockdown, so I was feeling a little robbed of the bridal preparation process in the months leading up. In lockdown, I maintained a strict skincare routine with my favourite Rationale products (cleanser, serum and night mask cream) and my beloved LED mask.
Beauty
When we heard of the re-openings, I pre-booked all of my favourite treatments to get me bride ready (in a short amount of time). My go to were nails (deluxe mani pedi with Hannah), spray tans every couple of weeks so I could figure out my perfect colour and a once-a-month facial at SELF. To me, these were the most important to perfect!
Her advice for future Brides-To-Be…
My favourite advice along the way was that ‘no one knows the plan on the day but you, so just go with it.’. Your vendors and planner are there to lean on and ask questions along the way so that on the big day you can just focus on the special moments of the day.
