Christmas Brides: Have you considered this important wedding morning factor?

A Christmas wedding means cosy fires, candles burning, warm hearty food and mulled wine. Christmas brides, it also means a winter's day in Ireland.

Christmas brides will have thought everything through from flowers to hair and makeup to music and food. However, as a wedding makeup artist, I have seen and experienced hundreds of wedding mornings with the brides family - and things go wrong. Don't worry, there is a recipe for a successful Christmas wedding morning and timing is the main ingredient.

When I say 'recipe' I mean that certain situations make for a lovely calm wedding morning as you always pictured it. Giggling with the girls over a glass of prosecco, a touching moment with your parents, a special family breakfast, and most importantly -getting ready with your beauty team. It only takes a few tiny hiccups to send that idyllic picture into disarray. Your morning can turn into stress and panic and a not-so-relaxing few hours if you don't time it right.

Timing is Everything

Timing is a simple factor. It won't take time to plan, all you need to do is make sure you have organised for everybody to arrive early enough. Christmas weddings mean that you have a very short window for pictures in daylight. You might find your photographer quite pushy about moving you along for pictures after the ceremony. This is because they are aware you only have until about 4 o'clock to get daylight pictures outside. Your ceremony will probably be a little earlier in the day to account for getting pictures.

You need to allow 45 minutes per person for hair and makeup. Your hair stylist and makeup artist will coordinate the timing once they are there in enough time to fit you all in. So if your ceremony is at 1 pm and you have 5 people for hair and makeup you need to start at about 8.15. That would have you ready for 12 o'clock leaving you time to get into your dress and get a few pictures before you leave for the ceremony.

Check out our wedding morning beauty timeline to help you decide the timing for your Big Day.