Glowing skin: Take your time

START EARLY FOR GLOWING SKIN

STORY: GEORGIA ROSSITER // PHOTOGRAPHY: LOVE BY SHAE PHOTOGRAPHY LET’S FACE IT — A BRIDE’S COMPLEXION SHOULD BE A HIGH PRIORITY IN THE LEAD-UP TO HER WEDDING.

But we have to forgive women for overlooking this most important of pre-wedding steps.

With a schedule as long as a pre-COVID-19 guest list, it’s near-on impossible to remember a skin care routine—especially since, when it’s done right, that routine can begin six and sometimes even 12 months before the bride says “I do”.

So why not put the stress of planning into someone else’s hands?

Enter Endota Spa, Echuca.

The team on High St has been providing skin care recommendations for so long, it’s second nature.

But manager Jacinta Cannon said it was more than just handing over creams, or booking in facials.

“We take clients on a journey,” she said.

“We have a lot of brides that start working on their skin six to 12 months out from their wedding.

“It starts with looking at someone’s skin, doing a consult then determining what it is they are trying to achieve.

“Then we take them on a journey.”

Jacinta said Endota Spa offered a range of treatments for every skin type, starting with enriching facials, as well as LED therapy, hydro-microdermabrasion and electro-mesotherapy.

“But the most important thing anybody can do, is do the work at home,” Jacinta said.

“We might see them every six weeks, but they’re working on their skin every day at home.”

Jacinta said her team also offered skin analysis to give clients exactly what a bride’s skin was craving.

From there, the team gives advice on products and treatments.

“We pop you in a skin scanner, which takes photos at all different levels,” Jacinta said.

“That allows us to see what’s going on underneath.”

She said a popular treatment was electro-mesotherapy, which plumped skin cells to reduce fine lines and wrinkles.

And the best part is it only takes 30 minutes.

“It’s a really good hack to make sure the skin is at its best for the day of the wedding,” Jacinta said.

Failing that, there’s always a massage or body treatment to calm the nerves.

“Get a body treatment, have a nice infusing wrap,” Jacinta said.

“Anything that’s going to help relax and feel great is ultimately going to be a good result.”

The rest, Jacinta said, would be written all over the bride’s face when she walked down the aisle—cool and calm, with a perfect complexion.

STORY: ROSA RITCHIE

PANDEMIC CHANGES WEDDING PERSPECTIVE

WHEN GRACE ANGEL IMAGINES HER WEDDING, WHICH IS TWO WEEKS AWAY, THERE ARE ONLY TWO PEOPLE SHE KNOWS WILL BE THERE NO MATTER WHAT — HERSELF AND HER SOON-TO-BE HUSBAND, TODD CURTIS.

After being forced to cancel their wedding twice in the past two years due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Echuca couple has decided to get married on their third chosen date—November 1—regardless of whether they’re allowed to have guests.

Depending on the rules in place at the time, the wedding reception might be an intimate gathering of no more than 10, a joyous party of 80 people on the dancefloor, or simply the bride and groom savouring their first few hours of married life alone. “At one stage we actually sat down and said, ‘What do we want in a wedding?’,” Grace says, recalling a conversation in March 2020. “I said, ‘I want my family and friends, I want to be in my dress—ideally without wearing a mask—and I want to dance.’ “Now I’m like, you know what? That’s the least of my worries.”

It’s not that Grace no longer wants those things—she seriously wants to hit the dancefloor with her bridal party on her special day. But she’s more concerned about the safety and health of her friends, family and community. “Now I just want everyone to be vaccinated, ideally,” she says.

Grace jokes that Todd might end up getting his dream wedding, which is a bit quieter than the big party she hopes for. “Todd, however, is the opposite to me—he said, ‘I want my family and friends, I want beer, and I want you to be happy—I just want you to have a good time’,” Grace says.

Todd proposed to Grace in late 2019, and the excited couple managed to squeeze in an engagement party in March 2020 before the world went into hibernation due to COVID-19. “We had a massive party,” Grace says, recalling the special night.

Grace says there’s one part of her that wishes she and Todd had just been married on the spot—they had no idea how badly the virus would affect their ability to gather loved ones together again. “If I had known, we would have just been married there and then,” she says.

Soon after Todd got down on one knee Grace was in wedding planner mode, booking an initial date of November 2, 2020, at Mitchelton Winery near Nagambie. “I got really excited,” she says.

Grace was 31 years old at the time, and she imagined she and Todd would start their family shortly after the wedding.

The 2020 wedding couldn’t go ahead, and neither did their back-up plan of marrying in March 2021. “It’s been nearly two years since we got engaged—I haven’t been able to get married, I haven’t been able to have the baby I planned,” she said.

Despite the heartache, she says the pandemic has made her priorities clear.

In a normal year it would be easy for Grace to get caught up in the thrill of planning the day she ties the knot down to the finest detail.

But three months before the big day, Grace and Todd hadn’t even been able to send out invitations yet—they still didn’t have enough certainty that the wedding would go ahead.

Grace has learned valuable lessons as she and the love of her life navigate choppy, uncharted waters. “It’s about resilience and what’s most important—it’s that you’ve found the partner that you love,” she says.