Salon vs. On Site

I highly recommend having them come to you. The day will fly by so fast and you will be having fun getting ready with your girls, that the last thing you want to worry about is traveling to another location to get ready, possibly fighting traffic, etc. Plus, it is so easy to run behind as it is, don't give yourself something else to stress about. Instead, get breakfast/lunch for everyone, enjoy getting pampered, and rest before your big moment.

My stylist is doing my hair and makeup on site. This way, if it is rainy or windy I won't have to be out in the weather to get to the venue. And it is one less place to stop the day of. Everything in one place.

My hair stylist/makeup artist came to the hotel where the bridal party and I were staying. The bridesmaids got dressed at the hotel -- that way they didn't have to carry clothes and everything else. I got dressed at the venue. It was very relaxed -- we all got to stay in our jammies for as long as possible, and everyone could go back to their rooms as needed.

Originally I planned on having it done at the salon. But, opted to have them come to us instead. It was too much hassle and headache figuring out all the details for all of my girls, where would we go after and rides.

This way, I tell them to meet at the bungalow by a certain time, everything will be there and we can hang out and get pamper!

I've been a BM with both situations. For the on site, we could get up when it was our turn, hang out and eat snacks/drink mimosas, run back to our hotel rooms if needed, but we also started at 8AM for a 5PM ceremony and there was only one corner of the room with decent lighting. Also, guests tried to stop by and say hi "for a quick second", which was stressful for the bride.
salon: we woke up much later, everyone's hair and makeup was done in an hour and a half, the salon had everything ready for us instead of digging around and looking for the right foundation shade. The other patrons were kind of annoyed by us even though I did not think we were loud by any stretch, we also had to coordinate carpools and make sure everyone was up in time and ready to leave almost immediately after we got back in case of delays.

i preferred the salon experience more, I liked getting away from the hotel, getting everyone done quickly, and not having to clean up the hotel room or hide bags or whatever while everyone was coming and going.

Me and my BP will be staying at the hotel that Friday night and the stylist and MUA will be traveling to us that Saturday morning. More convenient for us

It’s your preference. I didn’t put much thought into it, Because I didn’t have a preference.


but thinking about it, going to the salon is easier on me. The HMUA i chose offered her bridal suite, so i said sure. It’s easier transporting myself and 5 girls to the hair salon 5 minutes away from the hotel compared to inviting all 5 girls, plus two or three HMUA to my hotel room, when I’m not sure if there would be enough outlets / where everyone would sit because I’m unsure of the room size and what not. Making sure the HMUA didn’t get lost, what if they forgot the lip color or another piece of makeup i needed or something like that. So in my opinion it’s just easier for us to go to them. But it depends on your situation. We don’t need to be ready until 2 or 3 ish so that’s another reason why I’m not stressing. My wedding doesn’t start until 6.

Our hair and make-up person came to our ceremony location. It made things a lot easier. One of us could get her hair and make-up done while the other decorated the synagogue, and then we could change places. And we weren't risking messing up our hair with wind or rain between the salon and the ceremony location.

I asked a stylist this and from her experience working at weddings, she highly recommended doing it at a salon because it was quicker, she had access to all her supplies, you could be sure there was enough room and plugs. My hotel has a salon in it, and I plan to book it out the morning of and hopefully get everyone in and out pretty quickly (only 3 BMs) in addition to some of the female relatives. I could see though if I had to travel to a different location that weather could be a concern. I'm traveling to the wedding site from the hotel, so that's a risk anyway for me.

I’m having the makeup artist and hair stylist come to the location (there’s 6 of us total including my mom and FMIL). I figured it would save me the stress of driving around town and making sure I’m where I need to be at the right time. The people I’m using are also a preferred vendor at the location and know what they need to bring, how many outlets there are, etc. It is an extra cost for them to come to the location though.
I was a BM in a wedding where we went to the salon. There were 12 of us total and we were there from probably 5am until 3pm-ish (wedding was 5pm). I think in that case it worked better to go to the salon because there were so many of us and all the tools were readily accessible.
I did ask my BMs what they preferred and my MOH who’s been in way more weddings than I have said to have them come to us because it’s less stressful.

My hair stylist is coming on site. we live in STL, an her salon is downtown but our ceremony isnt - i wanted to make sure everything would be done timely. she's only doing mine, but i would have had her come to me/us either way. its less stress going to them, no matter how close or far away their salon is from you and your ceremony site, it changes things to have to go somewhere else.