Beach Wedding Makeup That Survives a Port Stephens Day

Port Stephens gives you water on three sides, and every one of them does something to your makeup. Salt air in the morning, wind across open sand at the ceremony, and light coming off the bay for the rest of the afternoon.

None of that is a problem. It is just a set of conditions, and conditions are easier to plan for than to react to. So rather than a list of tips, here is a coastal wedding day in the order it actually happens, and what I am thinking at each point.

Early morning, the getting-ready room

Coastal mornings here are humid even when the day is not hot, and humidity is the reason a beach wedding morning starts differently from a Newcastle one.

Skin holds more moisture at the surface, so a base applied straight onto it has nothing to grip. I spend longer on prep than I do inland, and I let each layer settle before the next one goes on. It is unglamorous and it is most of the reason the base is still there at the reception.

Air conditioning helps and is worth turning on early rather than when I arrive. If the room you are getting ready in has a ceiling fan and a window over the water, use the fan and shut the window. Salt air coming through an open window on a still morning is doing your hair no favours at all.

The last hour before you dress

This is when the decisions that matter get made, and most of them are about the eyes.

Waterproof goes on the liner and the lashes, always, and not because I expect you to cry, although most brides do. It is because a headland breeze makes eyes water on its own. Ten minutes on an exposed point is enough to move a non-waterproof liner, and it moves in the least helpful direction.

Individual lashes rather than mascara, for the same reason. They hold their shape through wind and through water and they do not need thinking about again. They are included in the price rather than sold as an extra, which is worth checking whoever you book, because on a party of six it is a real number.

Sunscreen is the other one. Wear it, absolutely, on your shoulders, chest and arms. On the face, be careful which one: a formula heavy in titanium dioxide or zinc oxide can bounce a camera flash straight back and leave you noticeably paler than everyone standing next to you in the evening photographs. Low SPF or a flashback-free formula on the face, the serious one everywhere else.

The transfer

Port Stephens weddings involve more moving than most. Nelson Bay to a Shoal Bay ceremony, Anna Bay out to a beach, sometimes a boat, sometimes a four-wheel drive across sand at Stockton Bight.

That is fifteen to thirty minutes of wind, and it happens after I have finished and before anyone sees you. So the finish has to be complete rather than nearly complete. I do not leave anything to be patted down at the other end, because there is rarely a mirror at the other end and there is never as much time as the plan said.

I build the timeline backwards from the transfer rather than from the ceremony, and I add a buffer for the group photograph on the balcony that is not on anybody’s schedule and happens at every single wedding.

The ceremony, on sand

Open sand is the most exposed twenty minutes of the day. Wind straight off the water, sun with nothing between it and you, and the whole thing happening at the exact moment the photographs are being taken.

Sand reflects light upward, which is unusual and mostly flattering. It fills in the shadows under the eyes and the jaw, which is the opposite of what overhead sun does inland. What it also does is wash out colour, so the blush and the lip that looked right in a shaded room can read as almost nothing on the beach.

I account for that at the trial rather than on the day. If your ceremony is on sand, tell me, and I will take the colour a step further than the mirror suggests, because the mirror is not where you are getting married.

Golden hour, and the photographs

The best hour of a Port Stephens day and the one your makeup has been working towards for eight hours.

By this point the base has had a morning of humidity, a transfer and a ceremony in the sun. If it was built in thin layers it is still there. If it was built in one heavy pass to look perfect at nine in the morning, this is where that shows.

Which is the whole argument for airbrush on the coast, and the reason it is included in the $320 rather than being an upgrade. It sits on the surface in a fine layer rather than being pressed in, so there is less of it to move and less of it to break up. The method and the finish are separate choices, and the bridal makeup styles I build all hold on the coast provided the base underneath is right for it. Airbrush versus traditional application goes into what each one does to the finish if you want the longer version.

The reception

Nothing much to say here, which is the point. If the first eight hours were planned properly, the last five look after themselves.

I leave you with a lip to top up and nothing else, because a bride who needs to be repaired at the reception was set up to fail in the morning.

What a Port Stephens booking costs

Bride hair and makeup is $320 with lashes and airbrushing included, bridesmaids are $300, and the minimum call-out is three people for hair and makeup.

Port Stephens sits outside the no-travel-fee zone, so a travel fee of $150 to $200 applies depending on where you are getting ready, quoted before you book. That puts a bride and two bridesmaids at around $1,070, against $920 for the same booking in Newcastle. The full list is on the pricing page.

I cover Nelson Bay, Shoal Bay, Anna Bay, Corlette, Soldiers Point and Fingal Bay, and I take one wedding a day, so the morning belongs to you rather than to a schedule.

If you are getting married on the peninsula, send me your date and where you are getting ready and I will confirm straight away. There is more on what I do across Port Stephens, and on the venues I work at there if you are still deciding.