Astor’s Salon and Spa - Grand Hotel

ts; all I wanted was for my hair to be down and curly and for my makeup to be mostly natural looking. The makeup wasn’t all bad, but it was lacking a few technical details: the eyebrow pencils she used did not even come close to matching my eyebrow color and my eyebrows were uneven (which I had her fix before I left), I didn’t have enough powder on my face so I left looking shiny and only got worse throughout the day and any blush/contour she put on faded quickly, and my eyelashes kept sticking together. However, all of that could have been overlooked if it weren’t for the atrocious experience I had with my hair... I have long, thick hair so I know that it is a serious process to curl it and give it volume, but someone with nearly a decade of experience should know how to handle that, right? Wrong. He pin-curled my hair, let it set, and took it down, which was fine, but then he ran his hands through my hair without spraying first (big mistake as long, fine, thick hair has trouble holding a curl, so he ruined a lot of the work he had done; I was hoping for more of a vintage curl, which requires brushing through to get the curls to all move together, but the weight of my hair instantly turned the curls into a wave. Not at all what I wanted). Then he tried to tease my hair to give it volume—this would have been fine if he didn’t spend nearly 45 minutes turning the front of my hair into a frizzy mess, redoing the tease 15 times, and COMPLETELY ruining any curl that was left in the front. I would have had him fix it or I would have fixed it myself if he didn’t put me an hour and a half behind schedule... I was leaving the salon in a robe when I was supposed to be at my first look. By the time I got to the reception my curls were gone and my hair was just frizzy. My bridesmaid helped me some, but there wasn’t much we could do aside from re-curling the whole thing, so we left it. Fortunately, I had blotting papers and took down some of the shine on my face. (Some shine is ok, but too much just looks sweaty, especially compared to the rest of the body.) On top of everything, the artists didn’t seem to care. They weren’t particularly friendly and they just seemed worn down; they looked at my bridal party like it was an aggravating job they had to do rather than an important part of someone’s wedding day. If you plan on getting married at the Grand Hotel, heed my warning: don’t go to Astor’s Salon.

got a french manicure, and my mother (MOB) got her hair styled. They could not have taken better care of us. The appointments were easy to schedule- I simply had to tell them what services I wanted and what time I needed to be ready for the photographer and they set it up. We had a salon luncheon delivered for us to munch (and drink champagne!) while there. It was the perfect way to relax the morning of the wedding. My nails turned out beautiful (she even went back and fixed one after she finished bc it wasn't perfect). My hair was exactly what I asked for. The food was delicious (and bountiful). If you want to relax the morning of your wedding I seriously recommend booking your appointments at Astor's.