Hair's the thing..

The more Foxy and I think about our respective wedding day looks, the more little details we start thinking about. We're not just thinking about the dress, the shoes, the suit, the flowers.. we're also thinking about the hair. More specifically, the length of his and the color of mine.

The shorter story of the two is in regards to Foxy's beard. Currently? He looks like a (super cute) mountain man.

He never just trims - it's either a full beard or completely clean shaven, with a week or two of, in my opinion, decent scruff.

The question for him is at what point does he shave before the wedding? We're thinking of doing a test run.. he'll shave the whole beard off, and I'll take pictures every other day or so to see what "look" we like best. Time intensive? Yes. Worth it? Hells to the yes!

As for me.. well, first thing's first: I am very much a natural redhead.

Correction: natural flaming redhead.

Exhibit A (as if you couldn't see it above):

See? Flames.

I used to loathe my hair when I was younger but always got death threats from friends (coughandmymomcough) if I even considered dying it a different color, like brown. Yes, I actually wanted brown hair.

So I went through a phase in high school where I dyed just the underside of it a bright, Manic Panic blue. Foxy Mama was none too thrilled, but hey - you could really only see it when I put my hair up in a ponytail. Then about two years ago, I decided to go all punk rock and dye the underside black. Foxy was going through a black hair phase and there was extra dye left, so... yea. That happened for a while. Again, really only visible when the hair was up, but it would also occasionally peek through the top layers of my hair when it was down.

Exhibit B:

While I've eventually grown to love having red hair, I'm still not a huge fan of the shade of red I was born with. Just much too bright. Again.. too flaming.

So about 9 months ago, I grew a pair of lady balls and decided to hell with it - I'm dying these virginal hairs of mine! I didn't trust myself to do it out of a box (because honestly, 9 times out of 10, you really can't get a natural looking shade of red from a box), and made an appointment with my stylist for a cut and lowlights. Starting out small and all that.

Well the stylist somehow convinced me to just go with an all over semi-permanent color - I forget the reasons, exactly, but it was cheaper and I trusted her, so all over color it was! But.. you have no idea how nervous I was. After she applied the color and let it sit it my hair for a while, the dye started to look like this bright, maraschino cherry red. I honestly almost started crying and kept whining to my self that mom was riiiiight waaaah.

It was kind of too late to turn back, so I took a deep breath and told myself not to freak until the dye was washed out and my hair was dry. I'm so happy I calmed myself down, because in the end..

Exhibit C:

..I loved it! (So did the pussycat.) Deep, dark, auburn-like red. Since the color is actually a semi-permanent gloss, it would slowly fade away in 6-8 weeks as opposed to growing out - no roots!

The bummer to this little hair dye miracle? My ever dwindling wallet wasn't able to afford getting color every 7ish weeks. Plus I was kind of nervous that it would end up frying my hair.

What to do but turn to Rite Aid and actually get a box of dye. ::GASP:: This doesn't really help on the frying the hair thing, but it does indeed help the wallet. I ultimately decided on Herbal Essences Natural Instincts in Medium Auburn Brown (previously Cinnaberry).

It's a semi-permanent dye as well, and has apparently been proven to cause less damage to hair. At this point, I didn't have much to lose - if I didn't like the color, it would fade away with several shampoos. Lucky for me, I actually really liked the way the box color came out! It's a little harsh for the first day or so, but after one or two shampoos, it looks great, and more importantly, not fake!

Exhibit D:

About 2 weeks post dye job - my ideal shade of red!

This is where the question of my hair color comes in, in regards to the wedding: if I dye it myself, how far ahead of time do I do so, OR, should I just cough up the dough and get it done professionally? I'm all about saving money, but I'm thinking it's worth it this time around. Again, I think we'll have to do the picture litmus test for my hair color as well as Foxy's beard!

If you're a fellow dyed hair bride, did you consider when to do a touch up before the big day? Or did you have a preference for your man's hair/facial hair?