Wedding Makeup by Bellus

Makeup Artist Hunter Valley, at the Cottage, the Estate or the Suite

Amanda Frost brings 18 years of bridal makeup to the Hunter Valley, to wherever the party wakes up: a Pokolbin cottage, a Lovedale estate or a resort suite at Cypress Lakes.

Wedding Diaries Editor’s Choice, four years running

A bride and groom nose to nose against a timber wall, her hair set in pinned vintage curls under a birdcage veil

18+ Years of Experience

Wedding Diaries Editor’s Choice Award

Wedding Makeup, Hunter Valley

Wedding Makeup Wherever You Wake Up in the Hunter Valley

Ask a Hunter Valley makeup artist where she works and the honest answer is: wherever the party is sleeping. A cottage in the vines at Pokolbin, an estate house at Lovedale with the bridal suite upstairs, a resort room at Cypress Lakes with twelve people and a hallway full of garment bags. Each of those is a different morning, and after 18 years of them I set up differently for each.

Bellus is mobile only. I am based at Cameron Park, and Hunter Valley venues sit 30 to 60 minutes from Newcastle, so I come to you with the full kit, airbrush and traditional both, and a second stylist at no extra cost for a party larger than four. Four years running, Bellus has been named a Wedding Diaries Editor’s Choice Award winner for the Hunter Valley alongside three other regions. The Hunter Valley wedding hair and makeup page has every area I travel to and the venues I know; this page is about the three rooms the morning usually happens in.

A Hunter Valley bride ready on her wedding morning, hair and makeup by Amanda Frost

The Vineyard Cottage

Makeup in a Vineyard Cottage

The cottage is the most romantic room in the valley and the hardest to do makeup in, because cottages have terrible light. Small windows, deep verandahs, warm lamps. I set up at whichever window faces the morning, position you so the daylight lands on your face rather than behind it, and check every colour decision against it, because a base matched under a lamp looks wrong the moment you step out among the vines.

The cottage morning also has the longest drive to the ceremony, and I build the run sheet around that drive rather than around the ceremony alone. Bride last, always, so the photographs in the doorway are of makeup that is minutes old. The vineyard weddings article goes through what heat, light and dust each change about the base; the short version is thin layers, airbrush where the skin allows it, and a set that holds until the band packs up.

The bride with her bridal party on the wedding morning, the last touches to her hair before the ceremony

The Estate Bridal Suite

Makeup in an Estate Bridal Suite

Chateau Elan has one of the best bridal suites I have worked in anywhere: space, light, and the ceremony a short walk away. Rydges at Lovedale gets that soft golden morning light through the windows with the vines beyond them, and The Convent has a stillness that slows the whole room down. In a suite like that the makeup can be exactly what it wants to be.

For most of my valley brides that is soft glam and romantic, warm and luminous, made to look like skin in golden-hour photographs among the rows. A natural boho look suits the barn and garden estates, and a classic and timeless look holds its own in a sandstone chapel. Whatever the look, the base underneath it is built for a warm outdoor ceremony, because the vineyard does not care how pretty the suite was.

A close frame of a soft, curled bohemian bridal updo dressed with fine floral pins

A Bellus bride with a softly twisted bridal updo dressed with a fine hair vine

The Resort Suite

Makeup for a Big Party at a Resort

Cypress Lakes, Mercure Resort Hunter Valley and the resort side of Chateau Elan are where the big parties get ready: bride, eight bridesmaids, two mothers, a flower girl and a grandmother, in a suite and the room next door. Bellus is built for parties of three to fourteen. Above four people I bring another stylist with me at no extra cost, everyone goes into one timeline, and I still do the bride myself.

A party that size is really one schedule with fourteen slots in it, and the order matters: mothers and grandmothers first, because they want to be finished and photographed, bridesmaids through the middle, the bride last. I take one wedding a day, so there is no second booking pulling me out of the room at eleven.

A bride and groom forehead to forehead at sunset, a flower pinned into her half-up hair

Travel, Timing and Pricing

What a Hunter Valley Makeup Booking Costs

Bride makeup is $160, bridesmaids $150, wedding guests $140 and mothers of the bride and groom $130, airbrush or traditional, individual lashes included. Hair and makeup together is $320 for the bride and $300 for each bridesmaid, with a minimum of three people. A Hunter Valley booking carries a travel fee of $150 to $200 depending on where you are staying, confirmed with your quote, and a $300 deposit holds the date. Everything else, flower girls, hair by length, extensions, is on the pricing page.

Timing is built backwards from the ceremony: the bride is about two hours, everyone else 45 to 60 minutes a service, and the drive from the cottage to the chapel is subtracted before any of it. Trials are at my Cameron Park studio, $150 for makeup and $150 for hair. Getting married in the city instead? The makeup artist Newcastle page has the same service with no travel fee.

A Bellus bride with a long braid falling over one shoulder, the length carried by clip in extensions

Love Notes

What Brides Are Saying

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Booking 2026 and 2027

Book Your Hunter Valley Makeup Artist

Send me your date, the venue and where the party is staying, and I will come back with a quote that includes the travel fee and a start time built backwards from the ceremony.

Send an EnquiryView Pricing

Or call me directly: 0402 905 765

From the Blog

Hunter Valley Wedding Reading

Hunter Valley Makeup Artist, Questions Brides Ask

How much does a makeup artist cost for a Hunter Valley wedding?

Bride makeup is $160 and bridesmaids $150, airbrush or traditional with individual lashes included. Hair and makeup together is $320 for the bride and $300 for a bridesmaid, with a minimum of three people. Hunter Valley bookings carry a travel fee of $150 to $200 depending on where you are staying, confirmed with your quote.

Do you travel to Pokolbin, Lovedale and Broke?

Yes. Every wedding-day service is mobile. Hunter Valley venues sit 30 to 60 minutes from Newcastle and I am based at Cameron Park, so I come to your cottage, villa, estate or resort anywhere across Pokolbin, Lovedale, Rothbury, Broke, Wollombi and the towns around them. Upper Hunter and further out, ask me and I will quote it.

Will my makeup last through a hot vineyard ceremony?

That is what the base is built for. In the valley I favour airbrush, included at no extra cost, in thin layers set to hold through heat, hard overhead light and a long outdoor day. Which base suits your skin is decided at your trial, and the vineyard weddings article explains what heat, light and dust each change.

How early do we start for a Hunter Valley wedding?

The bride is about two hours and each additional person is 45 to 60 minutes per service. I build the run sheet backwards from the ceremony, and in the Hunter the drive between where you are getting ready and where you are marrying is part of that arithmetic. Send me the ceremony time and the party size and I will do it for you.

Where is the trial?

At my studio in Cameron Park, on the Newcastle side of the valley. A creative bridal makeup trial is $150 and a hair trial is $150. The trial is where the look is decided, so I recommend it for every bride.

How far ahead do Hunter Valley weddings book?

The winery venues themselves are often booked 12 to 24 months out, and my Saturdays in spring and autumn go 12 to 18 months ahead. A $300 non-refundable deposit holds your date, and I take one wedding a day.