You have been on four vendor websites tonight, and not one of them told you what this costs.
That is frustrating, and it is going to keep happening, so here is the honest explanation of why — and then the five things that actually determine your number, so that when you do ask, you can tell whether the answer you get is a real one.
Why nobody publishes a flat price
Because there is no such thing as a flat price for a wedding, and any vendor who gives you one before asking about your day is guessing.
A bride alone at ten in the morning and a bride with nine people getting ready before a four o’clock ceremony are not the same job. They do not take the same number of artists, the same hours, or the same planning. A number that covers both is either too high for one of you or impossible for the other.
The vendors who do publish a single figure are usually publishing their smallest possible booking, which is not what you are going to book.
The five things that actually change your number
How many people are getting ready.
Not just bridesmaids. Mothers, grandmothers, the friend who is not in the party but is in the photographs. Count everyone who wants to sit in a chair, because that is the number that builds your timeline and most of your cost.
Which services.
Hair only, makeup only, or both. Both is common, and it is what keeps a large party from becoming a queue, because different artists work at the same time.
Where you are getting married.
Most venues involve travel, and travel is real work — a full kit loaded into a car, driven, and rebuilt in an unfamiliar room. There are exceptions. There is no travel component at Baker Lofts, because our salon is in that building.
When your ceremony starts.
A four o’clock ceremony and a one o’clock ceremony produce completely different mornings. An early ceremony compresses everything and sometimes needs an extra artist.
How much notice.
Not a surcharge — an availability question. We take weddings that are three weeks out and most salons will not. If your date is close, ask anyway.
What should be included, and often is not
This is the part worth more than a price, because it is where quotes differ most and where you are least likely to think to ask.
A trial with the artist who will actually do your hair.
Not whoever is free that morning. A trial is the only part of this that protects you — it is where you find out the style you saved eleven months ago does not sit the way you pictured on your own hair, and where you say “a little less” three times in September rather than on a Saturday in June with a photographer waiting.
A coordinator.
Someone whose job is your timeline, from your first message to your ceremony. Not a shared inbox.
A day-of assistant.
Someone running the room while the artists work. It is the difference between a morning that holds and one that quietly slips by forty minutes.
No cap on your party.
Some vendors publish a maximum between eight and sixteen. Ask. If you have a large party, this is the question that matters most.
The five questions to ask every vendor
- Is the trial included, and will it be with the artist who does my hair on the day?
- How many artists will actually be there on the morning?
- What is your maximum party size?
- What happens if something needs fixing after you have finished?
- Who holds my timeline, and can I talk to them before I book?
The answers vary far more between vendors than the prices do.
How to get a real number
Send us your date, your venue, and how many people are getting ready. Madison is our bridal coordinator, and she will give you an actual number for your actual wedding, usually the same day. Not a range. Not a starting-at. Your number, for your morning.
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The Team
Every artist on our bridal team is a licensed Michigan cosmetologist and came through our in-house Masters Program. We do not hire finished stylists — we build them over years, which is slower and is the reason the person doing your hair can tell you exactly what she is doing and why.
You meet yours at the trial, and she is the one who does your hair on the day. That is not standard, and it is worth asking about wherever you go.
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The Steal
The trial is included in the bride’s price. It always has been, and it is the most valuable thing in the package.
Here is why. A trial is where a bad wedding morning gets prevented — nine months early, in a chair, with time to change your mind. It is also where we find out that your hair does something unexpected in humidity, or that the pins you bought will not hold, or that the photograph you saved was taken on hair with a completely different texture to yours.
Vendors who charge separately for a trial are charging you for the part that protects you.
And at Baker Lofts there is no travel component at all. Not a reduced one. There is no travel.
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The Story
The bride goes last. Every time, on purpose, and we learned it the hard way.
Years ago we did a wedding where the bride wanted to be finished first so she could relax. It made sense. She sat down at eight; she was beautiful by ten, and then she spent four hours in a room with seven other people getting ready — hugging her mother, crying twice, leaning on things, touching her hair every ninety seconds.
By three o’clock we were doing it again.
Now she goes last. Her party is finished, photographed, and out of her way, and she is the freshest person in the room when the doors open. It costs us nothing, and it is the single biggest thing we changed about how we run a morning.
Ask your vendor what order they work in. It tells you whether they have done this enough times to have learned something.