If you're getting married and already started getting quotes/estimates for makeup, you've probably noticed that bridal makeup comes in at a higher price point than event makeup. As if weddings aren't expensive enough, do vendors really have to rip you off as well? Well honestly, we aren't and here's why.
ADMIN TIME
In the majority of work places, hours worked = money paid. Makeup artistry is no different. There is very minimal (if any) admin required for event makeup as the booking process would look something like this;
You jump online to a booking system 👉🏼 Find a date that suits you 👉🏼 Pay a deposit
👉🏼 Turn up on the day... How easy is that?!
Weddings are a little bit more complex and time consuming when it comes to admin. Each artist has a different way of doing things but to give you an example, here is what my bridal admin time looks like;
👉🏼 Receive enquiry & send estimate (15 mins)
👉🏼 Set up / send bridal contract (5 mins)
👉🏼 Organize trial date & update wedding info (15 mins)
👉🏼 Chat with bride about her dream wedding makeup (10 mins)
👉🏼 After trial, admin time writing notes and product details (15 mins)
👉🏼 Create & send makeup schedule for wedding date (15 mins)
👉🏼 Pre-wedding finalization (10 mins)
👉🏼 Average time going back & forth answering questions along the way (15 mins)
👉🏼 After wedding check in (5 mins)
In total that's already 1 hour, 45 minutes per bride! If we are charging an event makeup rate
of R500 which equals our hourly rate, we are spending R750 of our time just in admin for brides.
In time alone it is already justified to charge a slightly higher cost for weddings but there are still more factors that go into the pricing which we will discuss below.
SKILL SET
Bridal makeup is a very specific skill set that not every artist can do, just as not every artist can do screen makeup or special effects makeup.
Artists spend a lot of time, energy and money perfecting their bridal skill to ensure that your makeup not only looks good in person (and survives the tears and dancing), but also looks good for your professional photos and videos.
Not only do our skills need to be reflected in our makeup technique but also in our professionalism and how we show up on your wedding morning. As a bridal makeup artist, we are not only trained to create beautiful makeup but also to stay cool, calm and collected in a high energy and high stress environment, which leads me to my next point.
STRESS AND RESPONSIBILITY
Bridal makeup is by far one of the most stressful forms of makeup artistry. A wedding is no doubt one of the most important days of someone's life and the pressure is definitely on your vendors to ensure everything runs smoothly. Your makeup artist is absolutely going to help set the vibe for your morning and keep you calm through the inevitable nerves however, this requires a huge amount of emotional energy from your artist. In saying this, we wouldn't change it for the world and are always SO happy to be able to share all of the emotions with you on such a special morning.
“OUT OF HOURS” WORK
The majority of weddings require a 3:30am - 4:30am wake up... Yes, that's probably why you always see us with a coffee in our hand 😂.
Most of the time we have a 30 minute - 2 hour drive ahead of us and then 7 or so hours spent doing makeup without a break, on our feet the entire time and most often not having
time to eat during this time. We then need to do the drive home again and clean/sanitizing our kit once we're home. All added up wedding days generally end up being 14 hour days which of course needs to be accounted for in our pricing.
In conclusion, to give you that extra level of confidence and transparency, a 14 hour day of myself doing bridal makeup would be around R5000. If I were to do a 14 hour day with event makeup (even at the lower price point per face) I would make R7000.
Most makeup artists in the bridal industry would agree that they "lose" money being at a wedding rather than in the studio which is why being a bridal makeup artist is absolutely a job for passion, not money. I personally am so damn passionate about working with brides, I wouldn't change any of the above circumstances for the world... It's all part of the wedding day fun right? 🤭
While I can understand why you may have originally thought your bridal makeup artist was charging you too much I really hope this helps you understand that we aren't ripping you off but hand on heart, doing everything in our power to ensure you have the best wedding imaginable!
Happy wedding planning!
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