Managing bridal hair out of the salon
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than weekends – Thursdays and Fridays are now more popular than Saturdays. But it can be any day of the week, and more often than not at a venue rather than the bride’s house. The salon consultation is absolutely vital. We’ll do a trial run in the salon, where everything gets written down and everything is agreed. You want to avoid that when you turn up they suddenly turn around and say “oh can you also do Aunt Deirdre’s hair”; everything needs to be tied down and agreed. We also take a deposit of 50% well in advance. Ultimately, it is the bride’s day and they can be stressed if they want! But the key from our point of view is to try to make the whole environment as relaxed, professional and as special for her and her party as possible.
‘YOU HAVE TO FACTOR IN THAT THERE WILL BE INTERRUPTIONS AND UNEXPECTED THINGS WILL HAPPEN’ Steven Smart is owner of SMART:EST 73 in Weston-superMare, Somerset. He was Wales and South West Hairdresser of the Year in last year’s British Hairdressing Awards and has won European and world hairdressing championships
‘SOME OF OUR TEAM SPECIALISE IN WORKING WITH THE BRIDE, OTHERS WITH THE FAMILY AND BRIDESMAIDS’ Vicki Meredith is co-owner of Reed Hair in Maldon, Essex, which was in November named Best Salon at the Essex Salon Awards. The salon is also a two-time winner at the British Hairdressing Business Awards We have a four-strong bridal team, with normally two stylists working
on any particular bridal job. Two of the team tend to specialise in working with the bride, and two who are more likely to do guests or family or bridesmaids. When we go out on location, it is simply priced by time. We do also charge mileage – if you’re going out of the salon, however much time it takes to get there and back, you need to be charging for that. Traditionally, of course, the busiest day for bridal hair used to be Saturdays, the same as the busiest day in the salon. But I have found in the last year or two often it is much more likely to be weekdays
I have run the salon since 1999, and we have always done bridal hair, both on an individual basis and as packages. All of our stylists can do bridal hair if need be, which is important if it’s the bride, her mum, some guests and ten bridesmaids! You just have to be able to cater for whatever’s required. For a party of that size, especially if we were required to go off location, it would effectively mean the salon would have to close for the occasion, and so that would be reflected in the price of the package. You have to be realistic about calculating the time it is going to take, including travel time (for which our minimum is one hour), so that it is worthwhile financially. We very much base it on hourly cost. If you under-charge for bridal parties, you’re simply selling yourself
Mar/Apr 2018 | salonfocus