The 7 Things Every Bridal Hairstylist & Makeup Artist MUST DO Before January to Book More Brides

For us wedding pros, November to January is prime time for us. It's engagement season, and I want you to dominate engagement season. So here's everything I wish I knew about engagement season. How you're going to prepare so you can book the most amount of rides. And we're demolishing slow season scaries once and for all. Hey, I'm Marissa Grace. I grew my bridal business from $20,000 a year to generating over a half a million in sales doing bridal hair only my first slow season, I was five months out of just quitting my nine to five. And because I didn't prepare for slow season and I had no idea what engagement season was, I actually wound up having to catch cash out my 401k just to survive because there was no way I was going back to my nine to five. But by my four slow season, I was able to book 31 brides in just 30 days. And that's because I actually had a plan. So what was the difference between my first slow season where I had to cash out my 401k, and then my fourth slow season where I actually booked 31 brides in 30 days? Well, here's what I did to prepare for my first low season. I emailed every photographer that I ever worked with with a bride and asked if I could get images from the galleries. So started working on my website where I was going to put all those photos. And then of course, I YouTubed how to get the perfect Instagram aesthetic. Even drew out the nine squares on a notepad so that I could put like hair here, front face here. Because obviously it had to be perfect or I wasn't posting it. And then I signed up for wedding wire so that I could get all of the newly engaged brides in my inbox signed up at 200amonth just to get on the third page. Yes. Now that I had all my ducks in a row, I was able to actually post on Instagram, you know, with my three posts in a row of the same bride. And I was open for business. Like, come on, I'm ready to dominate engagement season. And here's what actually happened them. I did hear crickets. Yeah. Even from the wedding pro site that I signed up for. I didn't even get any inquiries from that. And I did, in fact, cry a lot that month. And I was like, I guess I need to go Back to my 9 to 5. A surprise bill later. And then you know what happens? I had to cash out my 401k. So here's what I learned to help you dominate engagement season get prepared so you're not thinking about taking up a side hustle or going back to the salon or going back and getting a 9 to 5. Not today. The first thing I had to let go of, I assumed that anytime I got an inquiry she was ready to book with me, which led to me not really preparing for engagement season and just kind of posting what I should have been doing throughout the year. I assumed having a wedding wire profile and a not profile would take somebody from viewing my page, paying a deposit, signing the contract all within one day when that's not how the buying process actually works. So with all of this in mind to help you truly prepare, I love to do inverse thinking, which is taking your goal and then doing the opposite. How would you not crush engagement season? How would you not dominate engagement season? Let's list out those action steps so you know what not to do and then we'll get into what you should do. So let's ask ourselves, how would I not get any bookings? First, you would never follow up with any of your brides, Brad inquires. You don't hear back from her and then you just never follow up because you're like, she'll follow up with me if she wants to book. No. Never follow up with clients for reviews, even if you reach out to them once and you haven't heard back. Never share reviews to your website, to your Instagram, to your highlights, unless it's a professional review from like Weddingwire or Google. Never talk about how to book with you because ew, that's cringe. Talk about your services one to two times and think, oh my God, I'm annoying everybody. I don't want to talk about my services anymore. Hide your rates from your website thinking it's going to book more brides. Add the word luxury to your site, to your bio and think just by adding that word it's going to book premium, higher paying brides and of course justify the rates that you just increased by like 10%. Only post professional photographer photos. No. Ignore your DMs and put no DMs in your bio. No social media content plan for December and January and you will absolutely not dominate engagement season if you stop posting because you're not getting any engagement on your posts. Hard stop. That's all the things we're not going to do. Now here's the seven things I would do to dominate engagement season and book more brides. Number one, audit your socials. Who's your ideal bride? What exactly is she looking for? Are the styles and the makeup looks on your Instagram profile that she wants? Okay, keep this in mind. Now head over to your Instagram and ask yourself, be so honest with yourself. Does my portfolio of what I'm showcasing on Instagram match up with what my ideal bride is searching up on Pinterest, on Instagram, on TikTok. And am I saying what she needs to hear in order to feel safe, trust me and want to hire me for her wedding day? If it's a no, archive it. For example, if you want to attract the 25 to 30 year old bride, I don't want to go on your Instagram and see brides that are 40 plus. It dilutes who you want to attract. She's going to get confused like does she work with mature brides or does she work with my skin type? I don't know. And if you want to attract brides, I don't want to see salon services, event, makeup, event, hair over on your Instagram profile. She won't know what you really offer. And scroll out if, let's say you want to attract glam wave clients. But within the first nine posts, the first scroll I see on your profile, I see boho half ups, I see braided styles, I see mermaid braids, I see messy buns. Your bride again is going to get confused on what signature style is yours and what she can expect from you. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to find your favorite hairstylist, your favorite makeup artist. If you do bridal hair and makeup, find somebody who does bridal hair and makeup, find whoever you love their Instagram profile, go on your desktop and pull up your profile and their profile side by side so you can see, okay, this is what my ideal bride is comparing my portfolio to with somebody else's. Because yes, that's exactly what she's going to be doing. And ask yourself, how can I get my Instagram portfolio to look more like this one? Since the this is the one that you are inspired by. Leave the emotions at the door, okay? Because again, this is what your ideal bride is going to be doing anyway. And lastly, when it comes to auditing your socials, leave the pro photographer photos on your website, okay? Again, it's going to dilute what you're actually selling. And if you go over on your profile and it's a bunch of zoomed out photos, it's giving photographer versus what you're actually selling is hair or makeup services. So you would want it to Be more of a zoomed in photo to sell what you're selling, which is the hair and the makeup look. And when it comes to auditing your social media, here's my strategy. Hot take. If you don't have the content you want on your Instagram profile and you've archived a lot and you're like, I don't have content to post, create it. Have a friend over, have over a bride that you worked on, hire a model and have a content day to create that content to attract in your new ideal bride. Because what you post, you attract. Step number two, to prepare for your engagement season, design your Instagram profile to sell. There's three prime real estate on your Instagram profile, your pin, post your bio, and your highlights. And be so for real, when was the last time you actually updated your pin, post your bio and gave your highlights some tlc? Probably a while. So let's break down each one. So for your Instagram bio, you can only have 140 characters and that's 140 characters of primetime real estate. First, above your profile is the tagline. And typically people will just repeat their name or put like bridal hair stylist. But this is actually SEO friendly, meaning if somebody searches Houston Bridal Hairstylist, your profile is more likely to pop up. So what I don't want you to do is repeat your name in that tagline, especially if your Instagram name is already your name. And instead what I want you to do is take your nearest, closest city and put bridal hairstylist or bridal makeup artist, whatever you do, next to it. So for example, Philadelphia Bridal hairstylist, Philadelphia bridal makeup artist. And now you'll show up in search. Then when it comes to your bio itself, tell me your signature, what can she expect from you? And no, I don't want you to just say soft glam. I want you to go deeper than that. Tell me how your signature helps with her specific problem, why I would want to hire you. So, for example, mine used to be helping you escape from your prom trauma. Because a lot of my brides would sit in my chair and they would say how they were traumatized from their prom updos. And that was my thing, clean low buns. That's a specific problem that I help her solve with my signature, which was clean low buns. Then you can show off your authority by like how many brides have you worked with? I would stay away from your years of experience, like 16 years in the industry, because your bride's not really going to care so much about that. She's going to care about. Can you get her the look even if you've been around for 16 years, if you can't get her that glam wave, that's not really an authority builder. But have you worked with X amount of brides? And lastly, tell me what action you want me to take. So have a call to action in your bio to actually sell your services. For example, a call to action can be 13 brides on my wait list. Get on it with like a finger emoji that's like pointing down so she can click a link or maybe like something cute like it's your turn to inquire. Okay, once you got your bio ready and designed to sell, next we're going to go to your highlights. Because when your bride is on your Instagram profile, her first stop is likely going to be your bio. Then she goes to your highlights and then she'll go over to your pin post so your highlights sit on your profile. And yes, I know, don't even come at me in the comments. I know Instagram is changing it and they might move it down to the feed, but what I don't want you to do is not focus on them now because it hasn't even rolled out. So yes, you should still prioritize your highlights because they're just going to be moving down into the feed. Kind of like how there's a reels tab. So until they make the change, let's still prioritize them. You want to create a series of highlights that act as a long form content and it has a longer shelf life of forever versus your stories only have a shelf life of 24 hours and they get to act as longer form content. So when you're not posting and your brides are finding you, they go over to your profile and they can binge these out. And longer form content. You're able to remove objections, answer any questions she has, give her more inspiration, get her spending more time with you. So then she's ready to book with you. So when you're thinking of your highlights, think of them as pages on your website. You're going to have a homepage and about me, a gallery that has a portfolio of your signature looks. You're going to have a frequently asked questions section. All throughout your website is going to be clickable links for them to inquire with you. So you want to do the same over on your highlights. I love to have a start here client transformations review so you can have even more social proof Speed up the buying process about you. Tell me about your story and a frequently asked question. Now within each of these you want to have clickable links that go to your inquiry form. Because when she's tapping through your highlights in order to make it designed to sell, you want to give her something where she can instantly click on it and then inquire with you. Or you can set up a ManyChat DM automation where she replies a keyword and then your ManyChat automation automatically sends her a link to your inquiry form. All right, once you get your highlights ready and they're designed to sell Next let's move on to your pin post. Over on your profile you can pin up to three posts on your main feed and then over on your Reels tab you can also pin up to three different reels. The three pin posts you're going to want to have is a traffic driver, one that drives traffic to your services with a clear call to action. Next is a post that goes into your story that's going to build connection with her. This is great for your expressive buyers in buyer psychology and it's great for our Gen Z brides who want to get to know the person behind the brand. Tell me how you got into the wedding industry. Tell me anything you had to overcome. Tell me if you had to leave a 9 to 5. I want to hear it so I can connect with you. And lastly, you want to pin a post that's already doing really well on your Instagram, so one that has a lot of views. So then your bride knows the types of content you're going to be posting and it's already content that's working so she'll be much more likely to want to follow you. Now with all of these, your bio highlights and pin posts, your going to want to keep these up to date as your offers change and throughout the year. I typically update them around three times a year. Highlights I probably rotate out and pin post I'll rotate out every couple months and my strategy Hot Take Stop believing your bride will simply just take an action and instead curate your feed to make sure she actually does take that action and inquires with you. The third way that you're going to start prepping for engagement season is getting reviews. Think of it this way, would you sign a contract with somebody who only has like three reviews or would you spend thousands of dollars with somebody without ever reading reviews? Probably not. Even though when I was planning my own wedding I knew every single wedding vendor, I still read reviews of their bride's experiences because it builds trust. Now where I see bridal pros going wrong with reviews is either not getting them at all because brides never respond to me so you don't even follow up with them, or letting them just sit on your Google profile, on your wedding wire, on your not to collect us and not actually work for you, believing that all of your future clients, if they're finding you on social media, is going to go over to those pages. Some will, but why not meet them where they're at? So here's how you're going to ask for reviews the right way. You're going to want to text them. And when you text them, she is much more likely to respond to you. Even if you asked her six months ago or you did her wedding seven months ago, shoot her a text and say, hey, I would love to showcase your experience on my website. For other future brides, would you be able to leave me a review and then give her a Google link? Then you're going to screenshot everything and post it everywhere, multiple times. I want to see them on your highlights. I want to see you post them on your stories. I want to see them on your Instagram feed because that's where she is and that's where she's more likely to read them. She's not going to read it on your website and read it on your Instagram profile. Oh my God, I read that review. I don't want to read it again. No, she likely won't even remember. Reviews are the number one thing that's going to sell your services. So here's my strategy. Hot take Reviews don't need to be pretty and they shouldn't just live on your Google or on your wedding wire profile. Get in the habit of screenshotting DMs, texts, messages in your inquiry forms because those can all be client reviews that have social proof and they're just as good as a Google review. Step number four is going to be posting conversion content for 60 days. Okay? It takes somebody an average of eight to times to view your content, know who your brand is and then actually want to take an action. I know we have the attention span of a goldfish. Probably even shorter now think about it. Have you ever saw something for the first time and then bought it right then and there? Probably not. It once took me six months to make a decision and buy a $100 based weekender bag. Like I had to be served ads on Instagram on TikTok. They were in my inbox. I was reading all the reviews, I was talking everything out, I was watching all the videos just to purchase $100 bag. Now imagine your bride who was going to be spe Sometimes a thousand 1500, 20, 530, $500 with you. She needs to be warmed up. And how you're going to warm up your brides is by posting conversion content. And if you want to shorten the gap from her inquiring with you to her actually booking, conversion content is going to be what fills that gap. It's what will get brides ready to book with you versus just knowing you exist. So here's how we're going to speed up her buying process. Here's how your bride's buying decisions actually work. Step number one is the awareness phase. She's aware of her problem, which can look like I need a bridal makeup artist. I want to look like myself. I had my makeup done as a bridesmaid and I hated it because I felt like I was wearing a mask. She's aware of all of these problems. Phase number two is going to be consideration. She's actively searching for a solution to her specific problem which can look like researching solutions for her problem on social media, comparing different options with different vendors, reaching out to a few different vendors, like filling out inquiry forms. Then phase number three is going to be the decision phase. She's finally decided on a solution for her problem. This can look like she reviewed all her best options, narrowed it down to her best choice, and she's finally signing the contract paying the deposit. Now this is important to understand because did you know 63% of consumers actually take around three to four months to make a decision? So that means going from the consideration phase to the decision phase could take around three to four months. Now that's where your conversion content is going to come into play. So we can speed up her buying decision. To speed up her buying decision, your content should be tackling her objections head on. Letting her know what her specific problems are and positioning your services as the only solution to her specific problem. Conversion content eliminates all objections that your bride has. Preps her so she's ready to book with you speeds up that buy buying journey. So she's not taking three months to make a decision. It's typically longer form content like 60 to 90 second reels typically doesn't get a lot of views, but it gets you income. Storytelling carousels versus trendy content gets brides aware that you exist. We love that. So each have a specific purpose. But if you're focusing too much on the trendy content. That's why your brides aren't booking with you. So here's an example of trendy content, which is cute, has nothing to do with helping a client with her specific problem, and it'll likely get you views, but it's not going to move the needle and get you bookings. Versus is here's an example of Conversion content tackles her objections and fears in real time with a real bride. She's talking about how she doesn't want to wear makeup and then we get to see the process of how she layers the products, what she's doing. So we see the before, the after, the full transformation. But we hear in the bride's words what her fears, objections and what she's looking for actually is that's the kind of content that's going to book your services. This is the best kind of content that's going to sell your services. Now if you're like, oh my God, Marissa, I don't know what to post. We're almost in December and you to want want 30 pieces of conversion content ready to go for you Content ideas for reels, stories, carousels the posting challenge is happening inside of Bridal Printer social starting on December 1st. 3 levels, 30 days, 3 types of content not only to get you visible, but to get you booking. I'll hand you over a calendar with the types of reels to post, giving you caption prompts, real hooks, real prompts, stories that sell templates. The link is in the description box below, so you can join us now. Here's my strategy. Hot take for conversion content get visible by posting trendy content that shows off your signature looks. Then post conversion content content to get her ready to book with you. And don't stop posting conversion content because it's not getting views because that's not what it's designed for. You might only get 20 likes, but you might get a $2,000 booking and I think that makes it worth it. The fifth way you're preparing for engagement season is create a wait list. If you haven't been getting 2027 inquiries yet, bestie, you will. And if you're like, maybe I'm ready to quit that 9 to 5 and I finally want to take this thing full time or you want to leave this alone. But slow season scares the absolute crap out of you. Those five months from December to April where you have no weddings, no income, and honestly wind up questioning if this is even the right career for you, he you might even pick up a side hustle or a 9 to 5 during those months, just so you can survive. I get it because that was my first low season until I made a fake wait list that ended up booking me 31 brides in 30 days. And nobody was more shocked than me. Now here's why this is important for you. Now. During engagement season, the absolute best time to book weddings in our industry is December and January. January being the best for bookings. And did you know 45% of all engagements worldwide happen in December. And those thousands of newly engaged brides start actually planning their wedding come New year. New me, the first action they take is booking their wedding vendors. Personally, January is the only time I recommend running and opening a waitlist because what you're going to do is ride the booking surge of all the newly engaged brides who came into the market in engagement season. When January comes New year, New me, they are ready to actually plan. And that is when majority of all bookings happen is in January. So I want you to ride that booking surge come summer, they've got other plans and engagements tend to dip and you're able to stack deposits during slow season. So you don't need to question getting a side hustle, starting something else, trying to bring in more income because you can actually just stack deposits. When I opened my waitlist the very first time, the fake one I started because I didn't know what to do with a two year out booking. The first day I booked 15 rides and earned 40. $500. Yeah, that was game changing for me. For that entire month, the 31 brides that I booked, I made $9,300 in deposits without ever touching a curling iron from my couch. Girl. It was insane. And this kept me focused on my bridal business versus getting distracted starting a new business like, oh, let me do some education, let me set up a hair class. Less you'll be able to walk into your year with bookings and predictable income. In fact, my client actually used my waitlist method and she was able to book out her 2025 year in December of 2024. And then she ran it again and she booked out her 2026 year by October of 2025. She could literally not post on Instagram for the rest of 2026 because she's already booked out and she's not constantly in survival mode of like, where's my next booking coming from? No, she has secure income with weddings waiting for her. So here's how you can start your waitlist. Decide the year you want to do it, 2026, 2027, or both. If you're less than 10 to 15% booked for 2026, I recommend doing it for 2026. Next, you're going to pick your opening date, so I recommend doing the first week of January again. Ride that wave of the new year. Then you're going to start funneling all of your waitlist brides, meaning any new inquiries that you get, you're going to funnel them into your wait list. Start organizing them in your CRM and create like a 2026 or 2027 waitlist folder so you can put them all in there. And if you want my step by step waitlist method, the Waitlist Workshop is now live inside Brattlebox Academy, but only until December 1st. Again because I don't recommend running a waitlist any other time of the year year. So after December 1st it closes. I'll hand you over the content funnel how to map out your CRM, how to automate all the exact email templates you want to send to your bride so you get more bookings, how to project the amount of bookings that you'll actually get on opening day and within that entire month and a full launch strategy for the week of your launch and how to increase your prices so your 2026 self isn't stuck working at 2025 rates. The link is in the description box below. To enroll, here's my strategy. Hot take on Waitlists Create a wait list now to start securing deposits during your slow season and set yourself up for predictable income so your wa walking into your year with brides already booked. Okay, the sixth way that you're preparing for engagement season is setting up a many chat funnel. Listen, if there's one thing I know about Ms. Gen Z, it's that she has zero patience. She grew up in the Amazon world, okay? Meaning she clicks one thing and then she orders something and then it's on her doorstep within like an hour. She wants everything to be Amazon fast. She has like zero patients. She's also somebody who wants to DM with you and connect with you before she fills out any inquiry form. Manychat helps bridge that gap. It's a DM automation tool that you can send messages or link links. When someone comments on your post, replies to one of your stories or DMs you with a specific keyword. Now here's three ways you can use ManyChat. The first way you can use it to get brides speeding up their buying process is link it to a highlight. You just revamped your entire highlights because you watched this video Now a fun thing that you can do is have a highlight with like product recommendations and in that highlight you can link to your Amazon storefront. If you have a shop my page or somewhere where you're getting affiliate commission, take that link to your highlight and make a many chat automation. So when you're posting on your story, she can reply a keyword and get all of the products that you used on that client. Same thing with your post, she can comment a keyword. Which leads me to the second way you can use ManyChat, which is comments. Instead of saying the outdated link in bio to inquire in your caption you can say something like reply 2027 bride and I'll send you a link to check my availability. Then manychat is going to do its work. When she comments that keyword, it'll automatically send her a message with a link to inquire. No more. Her getting distracted having to go over to your Instagram profile and take more action steps. This reduces all that friction. And the third way you can use it that I think is the most fun is a story quiz. Create a lead magnet quiz that when she replies a certain keyword your Instagram stories. Now she gets to find out if her style needs extensions or what kind of prep she needs for her skin type. This warms her up and is so much more fun than those boring outdated skin prep lead magnet or your free hair prep guide that most brides don't even open. So here's my strategy. Hot take with a Manychat funnel. The link in bio is outdated. Take 30 minutes, set up a DM automation and get more bridal inquiries on autopilot. You don't even have to be online, but you can still be getting inquiries from posts that maybe get re engagement weeks even months later. That's working smarter, not harder. And that's CEO energy. Next. Next you're going to dust off your website. Yes, websites are not dead. Google actually did a study. It's called like the 7411 where clients on average need to spend an average of 7 hours with you over 4 different locations and get 11 different touch points in order to make their buying decision. So if your clients on average need to go to four different locations, Instagram is going to be one of them. Then your profile can be another. But then your website is another. They want to stalk you out. It can do the most heavy lifting for you when you're not even online. Again, working smarter, not harder. Harder. Now here's where I see most bridal pros go Wrong when it comes to their websites. So you don't do it. I love you so much. But you clearly use ChatGPT to write your entire website and it completely evaporates all personality because you want to sound professional. My client actually did this. She rewrote her entire website, her emails, content, everything using ChatGPT because she wanted to sound more professional. And what ended up happening was it actually killed her business and she didn't get any inquiries or bookings for like three to four months. Instead you want to speak to your bride's real problems. Remember what I was talking about with conversion content? You want to be hyper specific to those problems and how you solve it so you can remove those objections from her mind. Let your personality shine. Attracting luxury clients doesn't mean not having any personality or having to be professional. The second thing I see bridal prose going wrong with her website is believing that you can set it and forget it. Be honest, when was the last time you updated your website? Girlfriend, we got to update that. You want your client's experience to match from your social media over to your website. You want everything to be consistent. We don't want to give her a jump scare of your work. That is from like six years ago because you haven't updated your website gallery or portfolio over there because that will actually scare her. I've had clients in my chair will say I found her on social media, she had a couple good posts, then she went over to her website and it was all really dated old looking styles. Yeah, she's not going to want to sign a contract with you. And this is the one I see the absolute most. If you take anything away, let it be this. When you're doing your website, I see so many pros wanting to attract the luxury bride when your branding is giving DIY energy. Said it with so much love. But let's be real. Just because you use the word luxury doesn't mean you're going to attract in the higher end brides. Luxury is quiet, it's soft, it's in your visuals, it's in your design as a whole. Louis Vuitton doesn't need to say luxury handbag, they just are their visuals, branding, website experience all give luxury. They don't need to say it. And hey, I get it. Creating a website is a massive task. You have to map out the branding, the fonts, the colors and on top of that you have to write copy that's going to sell your services. I recently did a rebrand. Hiring a copywriter, hiring a branding expert. Someone to design the website and I spent over $12,000. And and I get it. That's not something I could have afforded when I was starting out with my wedding business. But because I know how game changing having a brand and a website that attracts premium brides can be, I knew there had to be a better way. So that's when Project Aesthetic AF was born and I spent the last few months with a Designer. I'm paying $10,000 to create three customizable branded templates. Fully branded, fully customizable sales page and of course a Lincoln bio, proposals and story templates to math all to attract the luxury premium bride who wants to pay the high end rates without the 10k price price tag. You can use my copy prompts to write your website in under an hour without chatgpt evaporating your personality from your site. You can change out the colors, add in your logos, swap out the fonts, or you can keep it the same and just add in your photos and make it live. Either way, you'll have a luxury brand built in a weekend ready to dominate engagement season. And because I want to make it so simple for you to book more brides and actually scale your bridal business, they're available for free inside Bridal Boss Academy. If you're already a member of the academy, they're in there waiting for you. Starting Black Friday at 8am the first 100 bosses save 55% off Bridal Boss Academy and get all of these templates. Include it free and you get to secure the weightless. Method Workshop Set your alarms for Black Friday at 8am Start using these strategies now to dominate your engagement season and book more brides. I can't wait for you to get your hands on these templates. They're so good. All right boss, I'll see you in the next one.