My Hair is TOO LONG!!

I've had a task on my To-Do List for a while, and every day that it's not done, a little reminder pops up on my phone to let me know that this hasn't been done yet.  What is it?

My hair trial.

Up until a week ago, my sister was in Georgia with my parents still.  Because we didn't close on the house when we were originally supposed to, they didn't move up here when it was originally planned.  And since my sister is both my MOH and my hairdresser, that was a problem.

This week, I finally told her to stop unpacking and find her curling irons - I needed to figure out my hair, and it needed to be right then.  No exceptions.  But, I didn't have to force her.  She was willing to oblige.

So, after dinner, we set up in the kitchen (bathroom electrical outlets aren't working yet - that's on the house to-do list ;) ) and she got to work on my hair.

As she was curling it, and then laying it to rest on my back while she curled the next section, the weight of my hair was pulling the curls out, as you can see in the next two pictures:

Half of my Hair Curled / Personal Picture

Curled Hair Uncurling / Personal Picture

Turns out that since my hair is so long, it's really heavy, and so the weight of the hair is pulling all the curls out. Which means I may be getting a PWC, only it will be a Pre-Wedding Chop instead of a Post-Wedding Chop.  

But we continued with the trial anyways.  As you may remember, I was inspired by these updos that I found a few months ago, and decided I wanted to try to recreate them.  

Image via Soul Scapes Photography

Image via Make Me Fabulous

As you may also remember, I have very curly hair when I treat it nicely, so we thought that this could work.  My natural curls though, are very messy, and don't look as nice as these do, hence the need for a curling iron.  

So, after the curling was done, MOH E got to pinning, and she did this rather quickly, so we know that it is messy.

My right side / Personal Picture

The back with the curls (which turned to twists) / Personal Picture

My left side with the overly large chignon which will be much smaller on the wedding day / Personal Picture

A view of the front / Personal Picture

Some changes that will be made are that my hair definitely needs to be cut, because it was just too long to work with!  I'd rather have it be too long than too short though! Also, my hair needs to be curlier, so we are going to try to use my Curlformers, which should help the curls stay in better.  Also, the chignon is going to be a little higher up, because as you can see, it's slightly hitting my shoulder.  We're also going to add some volume to the top because I need it. Oh, and the two flowers that I want will be in there too - they just aren't made yet.  Yeah, I know. I need to get on that, too!

If we have time, we may try it again for the day that I have my final dress fitting.  But, what do you think?  Pretty?  Do you think we need to make any other changes?  

I-Do, Up-Do

Now that we're almost four months out (OMG, FREAKING OUT!!!), I have compiled a few hairstyles that I really like.

My sister, if you remember, will be doing my hair the day of the wedding, so I need to come up with some styles so that she can figure out what tools she needs to do them, and can hopefully practice a bit.

These are some of the ones that have stuck out to me:

Image via Soul Scapes Photography

Image via Make Me Fabulous

Image via One and Only Paris Photography

But, I haven't yet decided if I will be wearing my hair in an up-do, or a half-do on the day I say I Do.  All I know is that the hairstyle has to be accommodating to a hair flower, because I will be wearing one of those.  I just need to send my mom the material so she can start up with making it.  

Thoughts on these hairstyles? Have you found anything similar to these that you think I will like?

My SUPER long tresses

I have a slight attachment to my hair.  If you know me in real life, you will know that I've had my ups and downs with hair cuts.  When I was in sixth grade, I cut my hair to be chin-length and loved it, but I couldn't pull it back to play sports, so I needed to grow it a bit longer.  In eighth grade, I made a new friend who had layers cut in her hair, and it looked great, so I told my mom that's how I wanted my hair cut. So, the day before picture day, we went to the salon and had my hair cut. Worst decision ever. The haircut came out terrible. It seriously looked like a lion's mane. And it's captured in my eighth grade picture. Awful. And embarrassing. But at least now I can look back at it and laugh - but that doesn't mean that I'm going to be posting pictures of it.  Sorry!

Anyway, since then, I haven't really done much with my hair, but mostly because I'm afraid to let anyone touch it. Even family, because my mom cut my eyelid open trying to trim my bangs when I was in fourth grade.  Yeah, I'm not making this up - I really have had bad experiences.

I did go a few more times to get my hair cut, but the nice thing was that my hair was starting to get curly.  My dad used to have an awesome Napoleon Dynamite fro in high school, and my mom has very fine but curly hair, so I figured that I would end up with curly hair at some point, but up until high school, my hair was pretty straight.  I had my hair cut my senior year in high school, and it looked pretty good, and this cut actually made my hair curlier, which I liked a lot.

Senior High School Picture Circa 2003 / Courtesy of Mare Studios

When I went to college, I started playing field hockey, and with having my hair tied back all the time, I didn't really care to get it cut.  So, my hair got pretty long, as evidenced below:

Long straightened hair, driving my remote control Hummer, which had a camera on the dash so I could see where I was going on the remote - This thing was awesome, and I used to drive it into other people's dorm rooms and freak them out. Hilarious. / Personal Picture

My sister, MOH E, decided to go to cosmetology school after she graduated high school, and so to practice, we decided to dye my hair blonder, using a box color.  This was a terrible idea, and I ended up wearing a hat for an entire week, as parts of my hair were blonde, some were white, and some were orange. It was a week before Thanksgiving break, a few weeks after the above picture was take, so my sister picked me up from college and brought me to the hairdressers to get this mess taken care of.  Here is evidence of the box color:

Super blonde fake almost orange straightened hair with my yellow lab - we match...wow. / Personal Picture

So, I got that fixed, and since then, I've only done a few things to my hair.  That was the only time I colored my hair, and since then, all the color has grown out.  So, my hair has been long forever - in fact, FI has only known me with long hair.  Right now, after cutting seven inches off this past Thanksgiving, my hair is currently down to the top of my pants, length wise.  I am starting to think about different hairstyles for the big day, and while I have some in mind, I'd like to hear your opinions.  Do you think I should wear it up or down? Curly? Done nicely or somewhat loose?