Their Way / My Way: Easy Updo

This past weekend I had another wedding to attend, so I thought I would try out the Twisted Updo from Kate at The Small Things Blog.  Kate was one of the first bloggers I ever followed, and I've been wanting to try out this style for a couple of months now.  As Kate pointed out in her post, this actually is a super easy style as long as you break it down into steps.

Step one is to lightly curl your hair.  Don't worry about locking in the curls like I did here, since you mostly just want volume and curled ends that won't stick straight out of the style.  Then section out your hair so that there are two front sections, from the top of your head to your ears, the crown, and the back of your hair.

Step two is to lightly tease hair at the crown, and then pin that hair into a small poof on the back of your head. Use two bobby pins crossed over one another to lock it in.

Step three is to lightly tease the bottom section of your hair and then pin up random sections.  Kate just pinned each piece once, leaving the ends out and loose.  I've always had some struggles with leaving my hair "undone" - my braids are always tight, my ponytails slicked back - so  I wanted a little more structure (and hold, for all of the kicking up my heels and whatnot).  I did the original lifting and pinning that she did, but then pinned most of the ends into the style as well.

The final step is to take the two front pieces and lightly twist them, and then pin them over the style.  Finish with a lot of hair spray.

Let me tell you, I got a lot of compliments on this hair (mostly from elderly attendees, who thought I looked "like Adele, but prettier").  People were surprised to hear that I had done it myself.  It took less than 10 minutes (minus the curling part) and held all night!

Funny story, this wedding was actually in the same location as the one I went to two weeks ago, so I thought I'd take the same picture in the same mirror in the bathroom.

It was a little chilly on Saturday, had to break out a coat!  And yes, I decided to go with the white patterned dress.  

Oh and a final sidebar: they used frames with childhood photos of the bride and groom for the table numbers.  So cute!