Where to start - at the beginning I guess. My husband and I decided to marry in the North of Italy (2 hours north of Venice) in the mountains. We live in London, so we knew that our choice was not going to be the easiest to source suppliers for the wedding, but in our minds, we had found the perfect venue, so we were set on it. When it came to choosing a hair/make-up supplier I had a little bit of a hiccup / disaster with my trial in Italy. This was three months before the wedding. Doing more trials in Italy was just not an option. I started to ask for recommendations from my friends in London and one of my good friends recommended Gemma. I looked her up on the internet and was blown away by her work - all of the hair and make-up looked like it was out of a high end wedding magazine. I thought for sure there was no way that she was going to be able to come to my wedding that late in the game, but I thought I would try my luck.... I sent off an email on a bank holiday Monday in May. I waited with baited breath for the response, certain that it was not going to work. I got a message back first thing on the Tuesday confirming to me that in fact, this was one of the last appointments she had available. I jumped up and down with joy and immediately booked a trial with Gemma. I went out to Gemma's studio, which is absolutely beautiful and incredibly professional. I was nervous and excited. I met Gemma and immediately felt at ease - she has a natural way with people, she is down to earth, really interesting and incredibly fun. I loved the trial - the hair was just stunning and the make-up was beautiful - Gemma had made me look beautiful but kept me looking like myself. It was at that point that I wish that Gemma could come over to my house every day before I headed off for work.
Now, here is where it gets complicated, as I already mentioned to you, I was marrying in a pretty inconvenient place for most people from London, in addition to that, I wanted the hair and/or make-up done on the morning of my wedding for 10 different people and to top it all off, the wedding reception started at noon, which meant that me, and 10 other people would need to be finished by 11am. Now, above I mentioned a few positive characteristics about Gemma, but the one thing that I left out is that her and her team are a group of miracle workers. Fran and Michelle (Gemma's incredible and super friendly assistants) worked with me to put together a team of 3 ladies + Gemma to fly out to Northern Italy and drive all the way into the mountains on the Friday night before my wedding. Gemma and her girls (I am sure after an epic evening of travel) came to my hotel for 6.30 am on the morning of my wedding and worked their magic to have everyone looking incredibly smashing by 10.30am. I still do not know how they did it. Everyone was so happy with their hair and make-up and I thought they all looked so beautiful. Personally speaking, as the bride, I really feel that Gemma made me into the best version of me that day. She has an incredible attention to detail, she understands colours like no one I have ever met before, she gets people skin types and knows how perfectly to match a brand of make-up with that skin type. Gemma truly is an artist and I do not know if there are enough nice words in the English language to thank her enough for the incredible job that her and her team did. So I will say it simply - Thank You.