Hello my dears, I’m finally back with my wedding post! It feels sooooo good to be back and am still not tired of looking at the photos. For those of you who weren’t aware, I took off three weeks ago to get married in Singapore and Hokkaido. It sounds unbelievable but both events were truly perfect in their own way but when I say “perfect” I don’t mean that they were stress-free nor were there any hiccups — there were plenty but the actual day(s) were just magical. My conclusion is if you are getting married to someone you and your family love, it would feel beautiful.
So while this is a personal piece of news, I still have a beauty slant and I come away with a few handy tips for bride-to-bes — don’t change your skincare routine. Would you believe that my face broke out in angry red rashes at 7am (just a couple of hours before I get unveiled by my groom…?!?!)? I suspect that the SKII Treatment Essence mask I used was the culprit (my face felt tingly and slightly itchy before bed but I ignored it and thought it was the aircon causing it), plus I was heaping on a load of Naruko Tea Tree Oil Serum and Night Jelly as I was breaking out badly due to hormones (but not unusual to previous months). I have since resumed the Naruko products and they are fine so I really think it was the SKII mask (some friends have told me they cannot tolerate the strong formulation of SKII products).
Now I have not broken out because of this mask before but I seriously just use it once a month or even less because I consider it a “special occasion” mask. Unfortunately, I had been incredibly stressed and lacked sleep, plus I was also using my Clarisonic twice a day instead of just once a day, hoping to stave off more acne, but I think all my cards came falling down and my skin protested from too much fiddling.
Thank goodness for my makeup artist, Larry, who spread some steroid cream on my rashes which calmed down enough to put on some foundation. See that picture above? That was at 930am, just two and a half hours after my breakout, and my skin was still uneven and red but somehow Larry worked his magic and I looked quite radiant (and rash-free) if I may say so myself.
I can’t give exact names of the products that were used on me but I did see a lot of Estee Lauder and Clarins being wafted around my face as I tried to calm my nerves down. Second piece of advice: get lots of sleep. Third piece of advice: do not create too many things for yourself to do last minute. Fourth piece of advice: do not be too stressed. I think it is natural to suffer from some anxiety but I think my breakout was caused by a ton of stress and maybe the SKII mask was just a scapegoat in the whole equation.
With “experience” from the first wedding, my second wedding was seriously a breeze but that was probably due to the fact that the hotel took care of all the nitty gritty details and all I really had to do was to supervise the pre-wedding activities for our guests and write my vows and thank-you speech. Each night I made sure I slept early (before midnight) but that was easy because we were in the Hokkaido countryside where there was not much to do – lol! I also made sure I didn’t drink any alcohol before the wedding which helped heaps.
The ceremony was at 330pm so I really took my time to wake up and have breakfast (hemp-and-banana smoothie) — oh and no mask the night before; just my regular skincare.
Similarly, my makeup for the Hokkaido wedding was very natural looking and quite a bit of Clarins was used on my face (I’m now a fan!), plus the Cle de Peau concealer made such a huge difference to my under-eye bags. It costs about 6-7000JPY for a tube – holy smokes! – so I’m putting that on my “someday” wish list. I felt beautiful on my big day(s) which put such a sparkle to the experience. I’m no Kate Middleton (she did her own makeup…good grief, how did she find the time or confidence?!) — and I’m glad I got a friend who is a professional makeup artist to transform me from an average gal to a princess for a day.
I thought I would include one of the highlights of the Hokkaido wedding here and it’s a shot of our wedding dance. I love how we look like we are having so much fun together here…
I know we have been living together for most of our eight-year relationship but there is this imperceptible difference between us though we are back in our daggy PJs and watching TV on our futon. This is sooooo cheesy but we still are in our cosy bubble of post-wedded bliss….
PS: You can read a blow-by-blow account of the Singapore wedding here.
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