Beauty Belle Bonce - the secrets of perfect hair

Up or down.  This is possibly the toughest question posed to any bride.  How to wear your hair on your big day can have a massive impact on your overall bridal look.

The Duchess of Cambridge was criticised in some quarters for not being daring and wearing her hair up on her wedding day.  Yet she followed the golden wedding hair rule: don't do anything dramatically different just because it's your wedding day.  You still need to look like you.  The demi-chignon she opted for was glamorous enough for the big day but was still reflective of her personality.

Short hair needn't be troublesome if you're a bride.  Fashion labels are getting very good at creating intricate Alice bands and beautiful fascinators as delightful alternatives to trailing curls and fussy veils.

Of course, you could always get extensions put in.  And that is not limited to the bride!  When top pop pin-up Peter Andre married glamour model Katie Price in September 2005, he was worried that they would look back on their wedding pictures and his spiky hair would look dated.  To combat this, Pete had extensions put in to give him more of a classic Italian Stallion look.  Both Andre and Price later admitted that the only thing they would do over about their big day was Pete's hair!



By far and away, the worst thing you can do to your chair on your big day is to change it too dramatically.  I can think of no better example of this than Chantelle Houghton who tied the knot with The Ordinary Boys frontman Samuel Preston in August 2006.  She went from her trademark, striking blonde, Paris-Hilton-lookalike tresses to sleek glossy brunette.  Whilst the transformation (in my opinion) suited her, Houghton later admitted that she'd only done it because her beloved didn't like blondes.  She changed who she was because of him; because she was getting married.  And that proved to be a fatal mistake.  10 months later, the marriage was over.

We place a far greater emphasis on hair than perhaps at first we appreciate.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to revamp your self image, so long as you are doing it for the right reasons.  Don't do it to please your other half - you are going to have to spend far more time with that hair than he will.  Never EVER do it just to fit in with your wedding look.  Your wedding lasts for just one day (or a weekend if you're lucky).  Hairstyles can take up to a year to grow out.

If you want a radical one-day look, consider wearing a wig.  You can get ones made from real hair and they are a far easier option that changing your own hair.
Top Haircare Tips:


1: Use warm, not hot, water when washing your tresses.  Having rinsed all the traces of soap out, rinse through quickly with cold water.  This makes your hair glossier.

2: Keep your hair wrapped in a towel for an hour after washing it.  This keeps it softer, even when blow dryed.

3: Blow drying will give it extra body but careful not to overdo it.  Ease off the straighteners in the 8 weeks before the wedding so that you don't scald it.

Something Blue, Something Pink, or Something Gold - Not wearing white on your big day

Long gone are the days of the bride wearing white.  It represented virginity, which is something not a lot of us can claim to on our wedding days these days!  Whilst ivories and warmer shades of white are still the norm, other colours are gaining in popularity.  This is due in no small part to celebrity influence.

Following her Friday nuptials to Prince Albert of Monaco, the new Serene Highness Princess Charlene could well be a trendsetter with this elegant blue suit.  The floatiness of the trousers gives it a romantic edge, whilst the jacket gives it a suitably formal edge for the civil ceremony.  The colour looks beautifully cool against the hot Monaco summer.  The duck-egg tones echo those worn by the Duchess of Cornwall at her wedding to Prince Charles in 2005.

Victoria Beckham opted for a champagne gold colour.  It was traditional enough for her Catholic wedding ceremony but still radical enough at the time to set her out as a trendsetter.  Since her 1999 wedding, similar colours have been spotted on the likes of Chantelle Houghton (2007) and Coronation Street actress Jennifer James (2001).

Red is the colour of romance, so therefore it makes for a good choice as a wedding dress.  Chinese brides often wear red as the colour is thought to bring good luck.  However, this large cherry on the top of the cake offering from Jodie Marsh somehow looks more monstrous than harmonious.

There is no one quite like Dita Von Teese so therefore we should have expected nothing less than originality from her when she married kooky rockstar Marilyn Manson.  This dramatic creation from Vivienne Westwood manages to be fairytale and dramatic.  And since purple is traditionally the colour of passion, I don't think we could've expected anything else from Ms Von Teese.

Her wedding still remains the biggest selling issue of OK! magazine of all time, so it's little suprise that Jordan's big fat gypsy wedding dress (back in the days when we didn't know what big fat gypsy weddings were) heavily influenced wedding dresses over the following years.  Women felt liberated after this dress; white was no longer the only option.  Sales of pink wedding dresses when through the roof after Katie Price's 2005 nuptials.  However, Katie was not the first celebrity bride to dare to wear pink...

Two years before, rock chick extraordinare Gwen Stefani walked down the aisle in  a John Galliano creation splashed with pink around the hem of the skirt.  Given Gwen's outlandish taste in fashion, this dress suited her to a tee.