Bride without fake tan

10 Things to Avoid Before Your Wedding

You’ve been planning your wedding for a long time, so the day needs to be perfect. With that in mind, we’ve come up with the definitive list of all the things you need to avoid before your wedding to make sure your day goes perfectly. You can also share this handy mother of the bride checklist with your mum too!

What to Avoid Before Your Wedding

1. Changing Your Hair

It’s not a good time to try out a fringe, a drastic new haircut or to change your hair colour. If you want to change your hair colour for your wedding, you need to start working on that a good six months to year before the big day.

 

If something goes wrong, it could be hard to fix quickly and it will be in your wedding photographs for the rest of your life, so it’s best not to risk it.

Bride with wedding hair

2. Drinking Alcohol

The odd glass is fine, but no one wants to be hungover on their wedding day! If you drink too much before your wedding, your skin will look duller and you will feel lethargic and a bit sick. Keep drinking water to make sure you’re looking your best.

Bride and groom with champagne

3. Fake Tanning

You might be a pro at fake tanning, but just before your wedding it’s best to trust a professional. Have a trial run with a spray tanner a few months before your wedding, and then get a professional spray tan for the big day to avoid mishaps.

If you do want to tan yourself, make sure you read our guide to fake tanning with a wedding dress in mind!

Bride without fake tan

4. Staying Up Late

Your wedding is going to be a big day! You need to get an early night so you will be well rested. Have a relaxing bath before bed, stop checking your phone and sip chamomile tea or smell lavender essential oils to help you drift off if you’re feeling too excited. One of the key things to avoid before your wedding is staying up late scrolling through Instagram.

bride to be sleeping

5. Too Much Exercise

You might have a strict pre-wedding fitness regime, but the day before your wedding is definitely the right time to have a day off. You don’t want to overdo and pull a muscle, or worse. You need to be in peak condition for dancing!

6. Sunbathing

Even if you’ve got a day off and the sun is shining, put your sun cream on and stay in the shade. You don’t want to be sunburnt or have sunstroke just before your wedding.

7. Trying New Products

You might have a fancy new face mask you’ve been saving for the day before your wedding but take it from us – don’t! Stick to tried and tested beauty products that you know you don’t react to. Imagine trying something new and having a breakout the day before you’re due to walk down the aisle…

Don’t miss the dos and don’ts of doing your wedding makeup if you’re DIY-ing.

wedding makeup dos and donts

8. Having a Skin Peel

Skin peels will leave your skin super smooth – but you need to do them a couple of weeks before your wedding to really feel the benefit. If you do one the day before, you’ll end up with a lot of dead skin under your makeup, or worse, red, irritated skin on your face. This is something you’ll definitely want to avoid before your wedding

9. Trying on Your Bridal Shoes

You’ve most likely bought beautiful new bridal shoes for your wedding (maybe you’ve got lovely blue wedding shoes?) but resist the urge to save them for the big day. Start wearing them around the house a few weeks before to break them in – your feet will thank you for it.

bride in new wedding shoes

10. Leaving Everything to the Last Minute

We don’t think it’s your style, but make sure you’re properly organised and everything that needs to be sorted is before you start relaxing. We’re not saying panic (remember, it’s part of the bridesmaid duties to help you with all the admin!) but make sure everything is done so you can rest easy the night before.

Now you know exactly what to do before the wedding, make sure you read up on the 15 things brides always forget to do after the wedding ceremony. You’ll be super organised!

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