'My hair looked like a horse's tail.' Kelly McCarren on the 6 definite don'ts of wedding beauty.

Wedding planning can be tricky enough - choosing a venue, the guest list, the invites, the dress, the cake, yada yada yada...

But then you also have this whole other side to it. The beauty prep side.

The skincare plan. The makeup. The hair. The brows. The spray tan. Are you getting a spray tan? WILL SOMEONE BOOK THE SPRAY TAN?

Watch: Meghan and Harry share footage of their wedding day. Post continues below.

It can be... a lot.

And as someone who is in the thick of planning it all - sometimes you just want someone to sit down with you and tell you all the things.

That's why I was stoked when my fellow You Beauty co-host Kelly McCarren asked me to chat on the podcast, promising to take me through all the things I should and shouldn't do when it comes to wedding beauty prep.

And our friend Kelly knows weddings. Goodness, she does. She wrote about her own here.

So really, there's no better person to ask.

Listen: Would you rather get all of this in your ears? That's cool! Check out this episode of You Beauty. Post continues below.

Below you'll find Kelly McCarren's list of dos and definite don'ts when it comes to wedding day beauty.

1. Have a hair trial.

Kelly's number one most important rule? The hair. More specifically, "Don't do your hair like a horse, or an equestrian person."

Note. TAKEN. 

"I felt like it was nice to do my own hair - however, I hate curling my hair and I was also wearing extensions," shared Kelly.

"So, my mum booked me with a local to do my hair in the morning - and let's just say I don't know if they'd had that much experience doing a nice curl. But she was like, 'It's okay. It's okay. They'll drop.'"

"They did not drop. She used that much hairspray. I couldn't actually even brush it out. But because I was in such a panic because everything else was going wrong - the band bloody cancelled, then all the waitstaff cancelled and I just didn't really focus that much on it - I just wanted it pulled back and out of my face." 

"In my mind, it was going to be like beautiful cascading long waves in a low ponytail. But the curls sort of just congregated into like clumps and it just sort of went down my back."

"It looked exactly like a curly horse's tail."

"You also just need to sometimes think about the logistics of having that much hair on your back. You're hugging people, and you've also got this heavy dress on. You get so sweaty." 

Okay, BUT we're one down and I'm ALREADY LEARNING SO MUCH.

2. Don't try new skincare in the two weeks leading up to your wedding. 

The second thing Kelly told me? Play it safe with skincare. 

As a fellow beauty editor, she knows all too well how much stuff we slap on our faces. And it's fun! Exciting! Cool! But trying too many things at once can also wreak a helluva lot of havoc on your skin if you're not careful.

"Obviously, makeup and stuff is fine. But in terms of skincare, it's so easy, especially in our profession," said Kelly.

"Don't just think like, 'Oh, this promises that it's going to give me fresh new baby skin in a few days', or 'I'm just gonna buy it and then use it'."

"No, do not use it. It will peel your face off and you will not be happy. It could make your skin purge. It could just make you breakout."

Read: Approximately ALL of the things I do not want for my wedding day face.

3. Plan your skin treatments strategically.

As Kelly goes on to say, the same mentality goes for treatments. 

"If you're going to get a skin treatment in the few days leading up to your wedding, which totally makes sense, just make sure it's gentle and just for like cleansing and getting your glow on," she suggested.

When I asked her about the more intense skin treatments (skin needling, lasers and such), she said to just make sure to spread the sessions out and not to schedule them too close to the wedding day.

"My skin therapist was like, 'Okay, we're gonna do like skin needling every six weeks.' But obviously like a few days prior, we literally just did a really beautiful, glowing facial. And then just some LED light therapy."

4. Don't do your wedding makeup drastically different to how you normally do it.

If you've literally never been a red-lip kinda gal - don't wear a red lip on your wedding day. Or a jazzy eye. Or graphic liner. Or pretty much anything that veers out of the box from what you'd usually do.

And the best way to figure out what kind of look you want to go for? Book a trial.

"Pay for the trial. You want to save it for a good occasion if you're going to look amazing, but also give it enough time in case you need to wash it off and do your own makeup - because I've seen so many trials go terrible," Kelly told me.

Coolcoolcool.

"Just remember, you do need to wear more makeup when you are in front of a professional camera - more so than just your iPhone," she adds.

"The thing that a lot of people don't realise is that because [photographers] use their 4k crazy lens - it's not like using an iPhone where you'll just look amazing."

"You'll look in the mirror potentially be like, 'Oh, this is maybe a little bit too mad', but then you'll see a nice photo of yourself and be like, 'Okay, actually, it was perfect'. Just enough for the camera to pick up the different things."

5. Don't do an at-home tan.

And now to one of my greatest wedding beauty stressors - the tan. The tan makes me nervy, because I feel like so much can go wrong. According to Kelly - whatever you do, make sure you go to a professional. 

"I got a trial. It was not fine. It was just the worst job I've ever had. And I was like, 'Oh, stuff this. I'm literally just gonna do it myself'," she shared.

"I did it the night before the wedding. And I was a bit drunk from my rehearsal dinner. I just think it's one of those things get a professional to do."

"So, get a tan trial for your hens - do all of your trials prior to the hens as a rehearsal for the wedding."

6. Don't skip the body makeup.

Her final golden nugget of wedding advice? Remember to make everything look seamless and blend everything down to your chest.

"It looks quite funny. If you've got like a really flawless canvas on your face and then all of a sudden on your chest, it's like, 'Hey, pigments!'"

"Just remember to even out your complexion - the makeup artists will totally do that. Obviously, you don't want anything heavy because you don't want it to schmear it all over your beautiful white dress." 

"Don't forget a little bit of highlight on your collarbones and on the top of your shoulders to make them pop. Beautiful."

What are some dos and don'ts you learnt from your big day? Share 'em with me! Go on. Drop them in the comment section below.

Feature Image: Keegan Cronin (@keegancronin).