Why We Charge What We Charge

This is a question we all get asked as Wedding Hairdressers. I guess if your looking into the pricing of having your hair done for your wedding, you would have noticed there are lots of variances in prices. It’s the same as any service or things you are getting for your wedding.  You can buy a wedding dress off the internet for a couple of dollars or you can spend several thousands of dollars from a bridal shop or have one custom made.

Well hair styles are no different…………..yes I know there are girls doing wedding hair for as little as $45/50 per head & believe me some of those look like they are overcharging & some are undercharging. So let me explain the differences.

 

1 Experience

Experience is something you can’t learn by reading a hair magazine or copy a style off YouTube. This can only been gained by working & lots of practice & learning from other hairdressers. I’ve been hairdressing for 49 years this year & I still attend education classes to learn new tricks & methods. The styles I’m doing now are the same style we were doing all those years ago when I first started doing long hair. The only difference is the way we prep them & they are a softer look than back in the Old Days where every hair had to be in the right place & it also had to hold for not one day but several days. Some ladies would have their hair done on a Friday then come back the following Friday where we would take that style out wash, set, dry & comb up again, imagine doing that these days.

The day I think I know everything, is the day I will give it up.  There’s a big difference between a qualified Hairdresser & a Hair Stylist.

A Hairdresser is someone who has done an apprenticeship & learnt all aspects of hairdressing & hair

A Stylist is someone with no formal training in Hairdressing but has mastered the art of styling the hair.

 

 

Knowledge of hair.

As a qualified Hairdresser you learn the best methods of dealing with hair…. How we can make thin wispy hair look full & luscious, how we can make super thick hair look like you don’t have an enormous growth on the top of your head. When the best time is to wash the hair so its not all soft & fluffy on the day or a greasy mess.

You have to be able to work out a “Plan of Attack “ so you can achieve the Brides dream hairstyle for her special day. During your training you learn how to place the pins so there isn’t any headaches from your hairstyle at the end of the night & how to place them so they aren’t visible in the photos, there’s nothing worse than having bobby pins sticking out in your photos.  You also need to know how to do the hair for longevity & have it hold for the whole night, maybe even sleep in it that night & wear it again the next day.  You have to know the right products to use in the hair to achieve the right results, we all have our favorite professional products/brands we use & trust to do what we want. These are products we use in our everyday work so we are confident using them on your wedding day.

 

3 The ability to interpret what our Bride is wanting.

What do you do when a bride turns up with a picture, does your hairdresser/stylist look at it & scratch their head saying “What the hell, how can I do that”, if she does, run…

So what happens in the consultation…. We sit with our bride & talk about how she wants her hair to look on the day, we work out will it suit the shape of her face? Will it complement the dress style? Is it achievable with the type of hair she has?  Will she need extensions or padding to get the right results for her? Does she need to have her colour re done & if so how far out from the wedding does it need to be done? What is she wearing in her hair? Flowers, some bling or a veil ? & how to place these in the hair so its not falling out as she’s walking down the aisle.

 

4 Achieving the results

Doing a trial is where where you get to know the bride, her dream hairstyle & get a feel for her hair. I have brides that may be having an elopement or traveling from interstate or overseas that can’t make it to a trial so you the ask them to get some pictures together (Pinterest is a god sent for Brides) We get her to send some ideas through to me along with a picture of her hair, so we have an idea of what she is wanting. If she has no idea of how she wants it done then we just wing it on the day & that’s where experience comes into it.

With the trial we do what the name suggests, we trial the style you have in mind to wear on your wedding day. This gives us a chance to get to know your hair. A hairstyle is like a wedding dress, you have an idea of what you want, you’ve dreamt of it since you were a little girl, then when you try it on its not quite right. A hair style can be the same just because it looks good on the movie star/model in the magazine, doesn’t mean its going to suit you. (We’d all like to look like the movie star/model but a hairdresser doesn’t have a magic wand & can’t make that happen)

5 Hair that will hold right through the night

This is where our product knowledge comes into play. Do you need to completely saturate the hair with heaps & heaps of product into the hair then use almost a full can of hair spray so it will hold at least through the ceremony & hopefully the photos? The simple answer is NO. There is no need to overdo the product in fact this is a case of less is best. You will need products but they are so good these days you only need to use a small amount to get top results. The finished results need to look soft & natural not stiff & plastic. You want your hair to move naturally not like a plastic wig on top of your hair. There’s a reason we as hairdressers pay so much for our products.

 

6 Being able to do it in a quick professional manner

When you know what you are doing you can achieve the right results in a shorter time frame. There are many ways of prepping the hair, which on any style is the longest part.  You can prep by blow drying, hot roller setting, curling tongs/curling wands & hair straighteners so you need to have good knowledge of how these tools work.  You need to find the tools that work best for you. If it’s prepped properly in the first place the styling part is the quickest step in styling your brides & her bridal parties hair.

We tell our brides to sleep in their hair & if it looks good the next day then they can wear it again or take it out give it a good brush & they will have beautiful bouncy curls till they wash it again. This is also another reason for using good products they will brush out leaving the hair feeling amazing.

This is great for brides whose wedding day weather wasn’t the best & they have left their hair in that night & its still perfect the next day & the weather is perfect. They can get dressed up all over again & had more photos done.

This is a bit of a run down on “Why we charge what we charge”.  Yes everyone has a budget that they have to work to for their weddings & we don’t all fit everyone’s price range, so check the prices on the websites,  ring & ask prices, watch out for Specials that we all run at certain times & ask do they have the option to pay your wedding hair off. A major point to remember is you get what you pay for for any services not just those in the wedding industry.

 

 

 

 

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WEDDING HAIRSTYLISTS

Rolling Scissors is a multi award winner, voted QLD’s Best Wedding Hairdresser in the ABIA Awards.

Our business motto is to always provide the best professional and friendly service to all our brides to help make their wedding day the magic event that it should be.

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