Next Friday, James and I will be flying back to New Jersey for a week of wedding planning and (hopefully) job hunting. One of my wedding objectives, while we're back there, is to have a hair trial. The hairstyle is obviously a big decision, since it'll affect my whole look for the day and it will be immortalized in countless photos. And it needs to coordinate with my gown and the overall feeling of the wedding. So I've been thinking a lot about it.

Since my hair is naturally curly, I've decided I don't want to fight that by trying to do a French twist or a chignon or most up-do's. I don't want to have to iron my hair, because it will either never look quite straight or it will frizz out with humidity or time. And this is going to be a June wedding in New Jersey. There will be humidity. And all of those pulled-back hairstyles need straight-straight-straight hair to look right. But I also don't want to have my hair just down like normal, because A) that's how I always wear it and that's no fun, and B) If I don't try to control it in some way, the hair is bound to poof out or deflate or do something equally something awful over the course of the day. So, I need to find some sort of half up/half down hairstyle that can work with my curls. Or if I could find an up-do that doesn't need silky straight hair to look good, I'd be open to that, too. I've been trying to grow my hair out to be as long as possible (while getting it trimmed regularly to keep it healthy) for the wedding, so that I'll have as many options available to me as possible.

First of all, let me express my frustration in looking for curly hair hairstyles online. Websites like brides.com or theknot.com will have a hairstyle section, and then within that a curly hair section. So you'd assume that the models in that section would have naturally curly hair that they then style, right?

WTF.This is not curly hair. This is straight hair that has been sculpted to have curls/loops in the back. My hair will not do this (at least, not easily).

Seriously?? This isn't even trying to be curly! It's touseled straight hair. It's a little wind-blown. But it's definitely straight hair. It seems the people who make these websites have flat, poker-straight hair, so anything with a little body or the slightest wave counts as curly.

Okay. On to the few pictures that I've managed to find.

1. Well, there's not much to see, but it's definitely using curly hair, at least! I like that it's a low up-do, which I like a lot more than the pile-of-curls-on-top-of-your-head up-dos that I always saw at prom. And I like the roses, although they may actually be a bit much for me. I do want a style that can incorporate flowers, though.

2. I like this style a lot, but my hair would be curlier than this, so I'm not sure how that would look. But I like the idea of a romantic, almost medieval princess kind of hairstyle. But there's something about this style that doesn't seem quite fancy enough....

3. The main problem with this one, of course, is that the hair in the front is straight and it only gets "curly" at the end... another example of straight hair being made curly, not curly hair being styled. *shakes fist* Curse you, internet hairstylists!

4. This is similar to the first, and I like it, but I'd worry about the curls eventually disappearing by being pulled straight (this happens when I wear my hair in a ponytail after a while). I'm not sure about these updo ones. I think I'd be happier if I could have my hair half down...

5. Kind of the same as above

6. Emily posted this in her wedding blog for her own potential hairstyle, so I don't feel that I have the "rights" to this style yet. And I'm not sure this is the one for me, either, but it's very interesting. Romantic and could easily have some small flowers tucked in somehow. But my hair has long layers, so I'm not sure how that would look when it gets braided (when I braid my own hair, the braid starts getting ragged looking towards the bottom, as the shorter hairs start poking out of the braid). And I have a feeling that this is yet another example of a straight-haired model with some curling iron curls... so it might be more difficult to reproduce on naturally curly hair.

Sigh.

Any suggestions?