Color Me Beautiful: Bridal Edition (Part One)

I know what you're thinking. How can E and I post such vital, life-altering information on a blog with no expectation of payment for our services? Well, first off, we probably couldn't charge money legally since Lauren Smith wrote this book and not us, but still, we here at Lucky Ball Charms like to give back by helping other people reach their full potential. And we all know that you can't reach your full potential wearing the wrong shade of red. So this post is for all you brides out there who are freaking out about your wedding colors. Remember, ladies--when you finally know and EMBRACE your color palette, everything else just falls into place.

For those of you unfortunate enough to not know, Color Me Beautiful is a program that matches skin and hair tone to their supposed optimal colors which are divided into "seasons" of warm and cool tones and then into bright and light hues. Developed by a woman named Carole Jackson in the 80s, Color Me Beautiful is still around and totally revamped AND just by visiting that link you too can discover the Holy Grail that is your Color Season (It's free. You know you want to). You could probably tell just by our writing that E and I are the best seasons of all--Rich, Sumptuous Autumn and Stunning, Dramatic Winter. Don't be jealous. I was actually raised Color Me Beautiful (Click on it. You KNOW you want to know). My mom took the actual course in the 80s and is fully indoctrinated to the point that she will walk up to complete strangers, especially younger people, just to tell them that they are wearing the wrong color and then attempt to describe colors they should be wearing using pop culture references they don't understand ("Just think Myrna Loy and Gene Tierney. Those kinds of colors."). With a mom so militantly Color Me Beautiful (last chance), I couldn't help but be affected by it. I have actually had the following phone conversation with my mother while in the dressing room of a major clothing retailer:

Me: Hello, mom? I have this shirt here and I really like it, but I can't tell if it's Kelly Green or Wintergreen.
Mom: Is it cool-toned or warm-toned?
Me: I can't tell. That's why I'm calling you.
Mom: Well, is it the color of freshly cut grass?
Me: What? Uh, I guess so...sort of.
Mom: Hold it up to your face--do you look sallow? Or does it make you look fresh and alive? Emily, Kelly Green has yellow in it. Is it a yellow green? You can't wear yellow unless it's a TINT.

I know. It's a sickness. Anyway, on to the seasonal brides; first up is Dramatic Winter:


I think we can all surmise that by "Dramatic," the authors actually mean "High-Maintenance Bitch." I feel like Dawn the Dramatic Winter Bride probably has a magic mirror and a poison apple prep lab somewhere in her home, perhaps stored away until she gets old and someone else becomes Fairest of Them All. I suppose it is a good thing, as the article states, that Dawn is so self-assured and sophisticated that she feels a lace headpiece that looks like a starfish stuck to the side of her face is both appropriate and flattering. I'm also slightly puzzled as to why the authors of this book felt the need to draw the before and after makeup shots. I mean, did no one think to snap a picture of Dawn before they did her up? And why do we need to see what she looked like before anyway?

Next up is Classic Summer:



I wonder if Holly the Classic Summer Bride is a newscaster, because, I'm kind of getting that vibe. So, is it me, or is this look a tad much? I realize it was the 80s and fuschia lipstick was Where It's AT, but this look reminds me of that scene in Return to the Blue Lagoon where Milla Jovovich tries to do her own makeup using an inexperienced, heavy hand and then her husband slaps her because she looks like a whore (which--completely UNFAIR since he was paying attention to this OTHER woman and SHE wore makeup, but, clearly I didn't write that movie, so you know...). Still, I guess garish makeup is better than nothing, considering what Holly apparently looks like without any makeup at all, as illustrated in her Before Drawing (i.e., like a corpse on a slab at the morgue).

Next up is Natural Autumn:



Is anyone surprised that this woman's name is 'Gisella'? I have to say that Gisella the Natural Autumn Bride does look very natural, especially the hair--natural like maybe before her marriage, she lived alone in a hut in the woods and had a shelf stocked with traditional but ineffective herbal remedies for The Bloody Flux and Childbed Fever. Plus, she would probably also have been in charge of love potions and deadly-yet-result-yielding beauty treatments, so I would probably have been at her hut all the time never because I am so gorgeous and everyone wants to marry me. And if I couldn't see the bottom part of what is apparently her veil, I'd say she looked like she had decided to cover her head with some form of delicate white tree fungus. I KNOW--oddly appropriate.

Last, but certainly not least, is the Romantic Spring Bride:




So I don't really understand the purpose of the giant bow positioned like that on the head. I mean, are they taking aerial photographs of the wedding? I have to admit Susanne the Romantic Spring Bride is actually quite lovely, but if this picture proves anything, it's that a bad headpiece can ruin an entire look, people. Aunt Pittypat probably would have worn this as a younger woman--tell me I'm wrong. I mean, there's ROMANTIC and then there's LAME, and this, dear readers, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, is totally lame. Maybe this would have worked when Susanne was four years old, perhaps when she had heaps of banana curls, but now...not so much.

So, dear readers, if you're thinking to yourself, "Oh my GOD, what's a seasonally appropriate outfit for my GROOM??" don't worry; Colors for Brides has of course included some interesting suggestions for that which will be included in Part Two. Stay tuned.