At Laura & Leigh Bridal, we believe in love. All types of love – especially self-love! Which is why we are announcing #FreshFaceFriday!

To be clear, this is not a war on makeup or people who like to use makeup. We aren’t saying you should give up your falsies at all!! We LOVE makeup and wearing it (the only thing we don’t like are makeup prices… am I right?), but we also believe that we should love ourselves for who we are. TBH we just loved the alliteration in the hashtag; it was too good to ignore.

#FreshFaceFriday is about more than just not wearing makeup once a week.

Too often we hear a bride afraid to try on a gown because she doesn’t think she’ll look good in it. Or she’s too busy focusing on how she perceives herself – her hair isn’t done right, she hasn’t hit her goal wedding weight, she ate a big lunch, she has a scar that’s showing. The list goes on and on.

And I’m her consultant standing next to her confused! I don’t see that – I see how gorgeous she looks now and imagine how much better she’ll look on her wedding day when the whole look comes together perfectly.

Yes – sometimes it’s a little hard to do that when the samples are too big or too small, or the size charts in our industry are telling you that you’re a larger size than what you are used to. Ignoring those things or seeing past them is hard, we aren’t saying this is easy! We aren’t making excuses for the things in our industry that don’t help, but these problems are not a reflection of you as person. You look amazing on your wedding date, despite these things! I don’t know any brides who aren’t a perfect vision on their wedding day.

I can’t judge too hard. I do all these things myself! I pose in photos with my hand on my waist, so my arm looks thinner. I wear skirts that are mid-thigh or longer so the worst part of the cellulite on my thighs don’t show too much. I also put a lot of concealer under my eyes to hide my bags that show my sleep deprivation. I’m not above self-deprecation.

But I think it’s time to stop hating on “all my curves and edges” and start accepting them as my “perfect imperfections” (thanks, John for putting it into perfect lyrics for all of us).

All of us need to take it easy on ourselves! At Laura & Leigh, we believe in body positivity and self-love. We hope that you join us in our endeavor to celebrate ourselves! If you’d like to show you’re with us, post your #FreshFaceFriday selfie and tag us, so we can celebrate with you. <3