About once a week, a bride-to-be comes in asking for our help and often there’s not enough time to do everything.
Dr. Houssock and Lindsey, our in-house skin care expert, take you through the ideal timeline to prepare for a big event, from procedures to start planning at least 6 months ahead through the little tweaks you can safely do a week before the wedding.
Hear the go-to wedding prep favorites and how far ahead to schedule them, and what to include in your “emergency kit” to camouflage any last-minute issues that come along.
When you get engaged, call your family first. But then call us, so there’s enough time for you to look perfect by your wedding day.
Transcript
Dr. Houssock (00:04):
You are listening to another episode of Perfectly Imperfect. Hello, Lindsey.
Lindsey (00:10):
Hey Dr. Houssock.
Dr. Houssock (00:12):
How are you today?
Lindsey (00:13):
Doing pretty good.
Dr. Houssock (00:14):
We are on our, I don’t even know at this point, third visit on this podcast together. Is that right?
Lindsey (00:20):
That sounds good.
Dr. Houssock (00:21):
Yeah, it sounds good. So we were brainstorming because we have so many topics that we think that we don’t really, it’s hard for us to kind of project them out in the world, and one of the topics that you and I chat about, and unfortunately patients sometimes don’t even find out about until they come to the practice, is how to prepare for a big event, right?
Lindsey (00:46):
Yes. Absolutely.
Dr. Houssock (00:48):
So today we’re going to chat. We focused it to say wedding prep, but certainly,
Lindsey (00:55):
I mean that goes for anything.
Dr. Houssock (00:56):
Right? You have a big event that’s going to happen and you want to look and feel your best and how much time and what do you need to do in order to really prepare for it, right?
Lindsey (01:09):
Yep. Sounds right.
Dr. Houssock (01:10):
We get this every, we get a visit a week at least.
Lindsey (01:14):
Easy. And sometimes too late.
Dr. Houssock (01:16):
Yes.
Lindsey (01:17):
The event’s next week and I’m like, oh.
Dr. Houssock (01:20):
Yeah. So let’s just start from a big picture. When it comes to a big event, ideally if you’re planning to have a non-surgical treatment, and we’ll go through the details in a minute, but in a big picture, when do you want to first see the patient? How far out?
Lindsey (01:43):
Gosh, ideally as far out as I can, but it really depends on the treatment. Anywhere from a few months to a year, quite honestly, I think for brides, they usually start planning usually a year or so out.
Dr. Houssock (01:58):
These days.
Lindsey (01:59):
And so as you start planning, let’s come in and at least make the plan. And typically what we do is we work back from the event date and so what goals do we want to accomplish before that date? And let’s work backwards from that date to time everything out. And so sometimes that’s, if we’re talking Botox just a few months, I like to ideally do one treatment. And then your second treatment is the pre-event treatment. And so that can be five months from the date, easily.
Dr. Houssock (02:25):
Absolutely. And we’re talking, so let’s say, let’s take two different patient populations. You’ve got the first patient population is someone who has never done anything before, but they want to look their best. So it’s the brand new patient, they care about their appearance, but they’ve never done anything in the aesthetic realm to our level. So they walk in and they say, Lindsey, I am getting married in six months. Let’s talk through what I need to do and when I need to do it.
Lindsey (02:59):
So my first question, as you know always is, well, what bothers you? What do you want to see improvement in? So if we’re talking general skin, obviously that’s the perfect time to start skincare because it’s going to take about three months to see results from that. And so that’s good. You can get started on that. And there’s certainly, certainly some regimens that you can begin right away done. And we would target those. So do you have redness then we put you on trol. Do you have brown spots? We do Bright alive. Is it general anti-aging. Okay, maybe some elastin. So we’ve got choices depending on what exactly is bothering you. Then if it’s, I want my smile lines to be less for the wedding, I want my elevens to settle. I want my photos to look good. Okay, great. That would be Botox and that we could certainly do treatment one that day and then I’d bring you back in two weeks for a touchup.
(03:50):
We’d look at everything. We’d have our, pretty much our game plan for the wedding and then about a month out from the wedding we would do treatment two and we would do your wedding treatment. And it gives us still that two week mark if we need to tweak anything. And then it’s all set in for the wedding. So the two week tweak before an event in my mind is if we need it. And that way it takes the stress off of you love it if we need it, you still have time to come in if we don’t. Great. And then general skin, A cool peel could be lovely in that timeframe, certainly enough time for it to work. We can use a CO2 laser resurface, give you a little bit of that filtered effect. You could fit in one or two of those within plenty of time and that would be phenomenal. That’d be a nice easy shortlist of things that you could certainly do depending on what’s bugging you and what you want to see.
Dr. Houssock (04:41):
Now we’re right up, we’ve done what you said. We were great about it. We did our Botox treatment first. That first Botox treatment, we really figured out what we needed. We fine tuned it. We have our Botox right before. We’ve been doing our skincare. Let’s say I’ve been thinking about my lips, I’ve been thinking about doing filler. I haven’t done any yet. We’re still six months out. I’ve been thinking about doing them. How do you feel about that?
Lindsey (05:07):
So lips, prone to swelling and bruising, so you don’t want to do it too close out. I would say probably at least two months out it would be nice. And that way it’s less stressful. And I always think too with weddings, you’ve got a lot of things leading up to the wedding. You have the rehearsal dinner, you usually have some sort of shower. And so sometimes I work with people to plan around that, especially with lips because I don’t want you to be swollen or bruised at any event where you’re getting photos done. And so many times it’s just related to what you have scheduled as we’re looking at it.
Dr. Houssock (05:36):
And the good thing about those fillers, so we always talk about we have to plan for the worst case scenario. So we don’t want to do them right before, what if you hate it? What if it doesn’t work out well, right? We do great work here, we like what we do. But that being said, what if you don’t? And it’s the most important day of your life, right?
Lindsey (05:57):
Yep.
Dr. Houssock (05:58):
That’s what this time is about. Because obviously filler takes two seconds to do. You could get it the day before, but you have to worry about side effects. You have to worry about whether or not you like it. That’s the main thing. Botox, same thing. Yeah, it takes two weeks to kick in. People will come in, Lindsey gets it all the time, the wedding is in three weeks, I’d like to get some Botox. No. Now someone will, but we will not. And the reason we will not is because God forbid you get that treatment, you’ve never had it before, we’ve never been on your face and you don’t like it. There is no reversal.
Lindsey (06:32):
Nope, nothing I can do.
Dr. Houssock (06:33):
Nada. So we’ve done it before, we’ve turned patients away before. If you haven’t been that far out, now we understand things happened last minute, but we still have to be smart about it. So while six months is ideal, there is still things we can do within a couple of months before. You’re not going to want to do things that take time to see happen and expect them to happen. For instance, on the other side of it is our hair restoration group. So I have all the time I will have pet patients come in for hair transplant and they’ll say, I am getting married. And I’ll say, great, when’s the wedding? Yes. And so I need eight to 12 months to see full growth of hair, otherwise certainly we could do it if you’re six months out, but you’re not going to get the full head of hair by then. It just can’t. So we love wedding preparation, but unfortunately we can’t rush how things are going to settle and heal and whatnot. And so ultimately six months before, when it comes to any nonsurgical that you haven’t had, now let’s say your patient is the regular old Botox patient, regular old filler patient, how are you handling them differently?
Lindsey (07:45):
Well, for them we basically work back. Right? So we already have a set dose of Botox that we do and we kind of know what they like or we’ve done cheeks before and we know or we’ve done lips before and we know and so we work back from the wedding date or the event date and we just figure out when are you due? And sometimes you’re on a regular schedule if you’re on every three to four months. And so I may say to you, alright, well why don’t you go five months this time and that treatment will then be two months before the wedding, which will be a better clip. So sometimes we adjust a little bit so that you’re fully kicked in and at your max Botox and it’s not like wearing off or you just got it, let it be right in the middle there. Same with lips. Sometimes I say, okay, well we know we like this, I think it’s better to wait a little bit or we should do it now. And that way it’s ready to go. And so we just kind of taper the whole schedule based on when the date is and what we’re trying to do.
Dr. Houssock (08:42):
So what Lindsey is saying is as soon as you tell your family you’re getting married, you tell us.
Lindsey (08:49):
Yeah, we should be your second call.
Dr. Houssock (08:51):
We have to be, we should be on speed dial. But the truth is obviously, and we joke, but we’re not joking, but we’re joking. We usually are the afterthought. Because what happens is people are scheduling things and booking things and they’re booking their cake and they’re doing their place and they found their venue, and then they finally settle down, and it’s usually just a couple of months before, and they’re like, okay, now my skin.
Lindsey (09:21):
Yeah. That’s exactly it.
Dr. Houssock (09:22):
And we needed to be back when you were picking your venue. So we can’t work that fast. We get it all the time for mothers of the bride and mothers of the groom. Mommies come in, God love them, they’re probably the worst because they are really not thinking about themselves till the last minute at all. They’re thinking about the bride, they’re thinking about, they’re doing everything for everybody else, and then it’s literally the week before, when the people who are the loved ones that, forget it, you’re getting them later. So this goes for you too. This goes for anybody who wants to look and feel good for a major event. It’s really important, give us that time and we can really make it go well. That’s really what it comes down to. Surgery and we do get it, so when it comes to wanting to fit into a dress, we certainly see patients who either they decide they want to do something with their breasts, they want to be lifted, or the more that they’re trying on dresses, they start thinking about what I can provide. And it all is based on time, right? Liposuction, certainly contouring for a dress, that is a consultation, and the longer you give me the better. So again, if you’re really thinking about it, there’s no too early. I would probably tell you that when it comes to surgery, I will not do an operation on you three months before. That means you need to get in for consultation six months before, just like Lindsey said.
Lindsey (10:48):
Well, and I really felt like even when we did my lipo, I was swollen for, there’s just things that you think, okay, well I’m going to be thinner right away, but then you kind of swell a little bit.
Dr. Houssock (10:59):
Definitely. And then you’re getting your dress fitted, right? So how do you get your dress fitted if you still are not at where you’re going to be because you’re going through swelling and stuff. So yeah, I mean the longer the better. Unfortunately, the reason we thought this was such an important podcast is because everyone waits too late and we need you to know you got to get in here. You’ve just got to get in here to prepare. All right, so now you’ve done all that. Let’s say you’re at the final month, you’re down to the wire, now you’re doing the fine tuning stuff you did all the stuff you’re supposed to do.
Lindsey (11:34):
Sure. You might be thinking about a Diamond Glow at that point, a nice little refresh, give you a little bit of a glow. And that really I would do week before. I would keep that really tight because that’s going to give you a glow, but short term. And so sometimes doing that with an HA is really, really nice. The other HA that we can do, although I wouldn’t do it, I’d do it at the beginning of that month, would be something like Skinvive, the injectable to just kind of brighten you up and just give you a nice glow. But again, because I’m puncturing you with a needle risk of bruising, so give me that month before rather than a week before just in case I bruise, and everybody here knows I turn every color. And so you want to give that time to turn every color and then settle. So maybe at the top of the month you do that and then you come in over top with just your nice little Diamond Glow facial. And so you still have things that you can do right before.
Dr. Houssock (12:26):
Definitely, facial, laser hair removal, again, you could be getting your final one at that point, but your laser hair removals, again, you had to be getting them and treating. If you’re worried about that, you want to be doing that before you can get your final one, maybe a month before. A lymphatic massage, the balancer pro that we have is phenomenal the week of the wedding to pull off and increase blood flow, pull off any excess fluid you have, make sure that you’re not looking puffy, you’re not swollen. Depending on the time of the year, that may be more of an issue when it’s in the hotter months. But regardless, a nice lymphatic massage right before.
Lindsey (13:02):
Even an IPL, I mean.
Dr. Houssock (13:03):
Yes.
Lindsey (13:03):
But again, that can cause a little redness, a little puffiness. So I’d put that at the beginning of that month before rather than a week before. But certainly an option to get rid of some browns, reds and just sort of settle your skin.
Dr. Houssock (13:15):
And I think that’s the most important thing about that first consultation with Lindsey six months plus out is sitting down, like she said, and working backwards. All right, today we’re going to do this. I’m going to see you back in three months, we’re going to do this. We’re going to plan and make sure that your skincare is on point. Let’s make sure that your skin is looking good. Are you having an acne breakout? How has your skin been? And then some backup things. So for the week of you end up with a breakout, what are the things that we have that can help week of for breakouts?
Lindsey (13:45):
So I love that complexion clearing mask, I think we all do that sulfur mask, phenomenal.
Dr. Houssock (13:51):
Blue dots all over our faces. Yes.
Lindsey (13:54):
It always makes me laugh because I think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding with the Windex and that’s blue. And then I think of that, I’m like, just the blue things will help you.
Dr. Houssock (14:03):
It’s so good. So it’s a sulfur based mask.
Lindsey (14:05):
It’s wonderful.
Dr. Houssock (14:07):
I just had like a moment because, so I am somebody who is acne prone all through adulthood. And then I tell this story, I’m not only whatever, I’m a patient here. Ever since Lindsey’s been consistently doing my radiofrequency microneedling, Lindsey, I’m not kidding. I can’t tell you the last time I used that blue mask.
Lindsey (14:30):
You don’t need it anymore. We’ve been doing the blue light.
Dr. Houssock (14:33):
I don’t need it anymore. It’s so wild.
Lindsey (14:35):
But again, that’s one we have to start kind ahead. We have to work back. I mean those treatments take about six months to see full results from each treatment. So you could be nine months before the wedding when you’re planning those.
Dr. Houssock (14:48):
Yes.
Lindsey (14:49):
We had a mother of the bride who did a phenomenal job and gave me over a year of a heads up on this event. And we said, okay, we need to do IPL, a full series. We needed to do Sculptra to build volume in her temples and cheeks and we had to do Morpheus to tick all the boxes. Well, we got it all in. And what we did was we just set up a timeline. So here you’re going to do Morpheus. Well, your Sculptra’s going to take about six months to kick in, so here we have to do the Sculptra, here we have to do your IPL. And so if we get a good game plan together, we can knock it out. And she looked phenomenal and wonderful right before, but we had done, we’d been working for a while and it’s just slow and steady.
Dr. Houssock (15:29):
Yep. It’s not overnight. It just can’t be overnight. It’s impossible. I mean, there are things that are going to come up and we can learn to, we can work with them. We’re going to have stuff happen, but ultimately give us the time and we can get you maximized when it comes to, let’s say we get that breakout, something that you should have in your bag, just some camouflaging agents. Obviously makeup is great. We have a specific makeup, our Jane Iradel skincare makeup actually has a camouflaging palette.
Lindsey (15:59):
Wonderful.
Dr. Houssock (15:59):
Can cover any color that comes your way. And so I would have that in your little kit of things to have for the day of and the day before, just in case.
Lindsey (16:11):
And I actually just tried, they came out with a pencil eyeshadow. I just had them put that on and it was so easy. And I thought, well, how lovely to be able to touch something up quickly. You just whip out that little pencil and go, and you’re done. And also, I highly recommend my zombie coverup that they developed because of my zombie eyes. They heard me talking about it, this is a true story, and they said, we need to help this girl out. It’s really bad. And so even we all get a little tired leading up to an event because you’re busy. And so that stuff is magic. You’re welcome.
Dr. Houssock (16:49):
I love it. I love it. It’s funny you go back in time to your own wedding and you think about what it was like to prepare and to, it’s so funny because everybody’s story is different. I mean, we were married in Vegas, Chris and I, so I am not the one to talk about planning. We did not.
Lindsey (17:11):
It’s okay.
Dr. Houssock (17:12):
We were a pandemic wedding. But a lot of women are having to plan a year and a half out just to get the right venue now.
Lindsey (17:20):
You can’t even get in places. It’s crazy.
Dr. Houssock (17:23):
It’s crazy. And so we know that, unfortunately, we don’t think that what we’re asking for is unreasonable when it comes to your timing. It’s just I truly don’t think that patients know. And that’s why we wanted to sing it from the rooftops that you need to let us know. But I would say a year is ultimate. Six months would be the best time to really get started. And then at three months we’re fine tuning our game plan for right up to the wedding a month before we’re doing tiny little things that we’ve already planned for. And then last minute we’ve got those things up our sleeve for the just in case.
Lindsey (18:09):
Yep. Absolutely. I think that’s it.
Dr. Houssock (18:11):
That’s really what it comes down to. What else did we miss?
Lindsey (18:14):
I mean, I would say the other part of this whole thing is also expectations. So it’s not that we can’t do a microneedling six months in advance. We certainly can. You will not have your full result from a series by the time of the event, but you would see something. And so part of it is if you’re okay with that. Yes, absolutely. So for your acne patients, we could certainly get in two or three treatments with blue light. It’s going to be better, but it’s going to keep getting better after the wedding, which is fine.
Dr. Houssock (18:41):
Yeah, yeah.
Lindsey (18:42):
Better is better. And so there’s definitely things that we can do that you’ll still see some result from, but you may not be fully resulted.
Dr. Houssock (18:50):
Yeah, like don’t freak out. Well, there’s always going to be something, and inevitably not everybody’s going to be able to give us six months. So we know that, but ultimately we can help you. And listen, the reality of it is, even if you’re thinking about it the month before, you can do some nice things to your skin to prepare you. It’s not the end of the world, but if you’re looking for the best bet and us doing the most that we can, then just give us that extra time. I mean, ultimately that’s it.
Lindsey (19:20):
The only other thing I would say is with hair too, non surgically, that takes time as well. And so that’s still going to be about eight months to fully thicken if we’re doing PRP.
Dr. Houssock (19:32):
Absolutely.
Lindsey (19:32):
It really is that time. But again, you’ll see something if it’s less than that, it just won’t be fully resulted.
Dr. Houssock (19:40):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And some of our guys are okay with that. I’ll say to them, you’re going to be six months out at this point, but you’re going to have more hair, you’ll have more hair than you did. So your six months is going to be better than now. We’re not going to transplant you a month before the wedding.
Lindsey (19:59):
No, no we will not. We will not.
Dr. Houssock (20:01):
Again, it’s the same thing as any other surgery, we need you to heal first. So I’d probably say, again, my minimum of three months before you have a big event. I always say this, but I say it in jest, but it’s because it happened before, like, I’ll ask people, make sure you don’t have any galas or anything coming up in the next month, because it’s happened to us.
Lindsey (20:21):
Yes.
Dr. Houssock (20:21):
It’s happened to us. We’ve had one wonderful patient who almost had to cancel because his daughter had a huge mother-daughter dance the next week. And we were like, you’re going to look crazy.
Lindsey (20:36):
Yeah, yeah. No, it’s so true. But in women too, with transplant, with PRP sometimes it’s all about styling. And so it will give you more that you can style, even if it’s not fully grown in yet, but you want it to be grown in a little bit.
Dr. Houssock (20:51):
A hundred percent. Yeah.
Lindsey (20:52):
So it’s the in-between of how can we get you grown in enough, but also not right out of surgery.
Dr. Houssock (21:01):
Right. Yeah.
Lindsey (21:02):
I don’t know.
Dr. Houssock (21:02):
Nobody wants to look like a Frankenstein going into the biggest day of their life.
Lindsey (21:07):
No. And Dr. Houssock, you are phenomenal, but you’re shaving at the back of the head, I mean, it’s very surgical.
Dr. Houssock (21:16):
They don’t teach us how to be a barber. I have no idea how to be a barber. We say this every time. Actually, it’s so funny. Linds, the other day, one of our favorite patients, and if he listens to this, he’ll know who he is, he said to me the other day, he saw a before and after and he said, did you give this guy your famous haircut beforehand? I mean, listen, there’s nothing aesthetic about the haircut you get for a hair transplant. It is as surgical as it gets.
Lindsey (21:45):
There is not. So don’t have a gala that weekend.
Dr. Houssock (21:50):
Actually even worse is like I will do the surgical part of it that I need, and Lindsey always comes back with the clippers because I leave these long hairs on their neck where I’m like, whatever, I don’t care. And she’s,
Lindsey (21:59):
Yeah, we’re not going there. Just even it up a little bit. But I’m terrible too. So I dunno that my evening is really great either.
Dr. Houssock (22:09):
What we’re saying is don’t come here for your haircuts.
Lindsey (22:12):
No, I would not. I would not. But also you want to plan that in just not with us.
Dr. Houssock (22:18):
Yes.
Lindsey (22:19):
Yes. That would not be us.
Dr. Houssock (22:21):
Exactly. Not us. Alright, Lindsey, carry on.
Lindsey (22:24):
Carry on. Dr. Houssock,
Dr. Houssock (22:26):
Perfectly Imperfect is the authentically human podcast navigating the realities of aesthetic medicine. JEV Plastic Surgery is located in Owings Mills, Maryland. To learn more about us, go to jevplasticsurgery.com or follow us on Instagram @drcarehoussock, spelled D-R-C-A-R-E-H-O-U-S-S-O-C-K, or just look in the show notes for links. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and subscribe to Perfectly Imperfect on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’d like to listen to podcasts.