Thexperience Salon + Spa

I chose this place to do my wedding hair and makeup and I wish I hadn't! I came to the trial to get hair and makeup done, showed the hairdresser a picture and she told me she could do it. Two hours later, and my hair looked nothing like the picture. It was an experiment gone wrong. She told me she had no time to try a different look as she was booked with someone else (even though the point of the trial was to try out different things) so we had to move on to makeup. Makeup went well. She rescheduled me to come the next weekend for another hair trial, very early in the morning, and this was a week before my wedding. Mid-week, I get a call from the salon saying "we don't know why she told you she's free because she isn't. She is booked all day." They offered me a trial with a different person. At this point, it was no longer about me trying out different styles, it was about me seeing whether the stylist could even do the style that I wanted, so I was not willing to have a trial with someone different other than who would do my hair the day of the wedding. I was also told I would have to pay for the second trial since I "already had my preview." After many complaints to the manager and being reassigned a different person for the trial and day of, I came in for my second preview. The stylist I had was very friendly but she took a loooooong time to do my hair and it was still not exactly what I asked her, but much better than the other sylist. Since it took her three hours, I asked if I can get my hair done earlier in the day on the wedding day to ensure I have enough time. She told me it would not take her three hours on the wedding day since she knew exactly what she was doing now. We booked for 2 and a half hours. Come the wedding day and I show up at the salon. The lady does my hair and it seems like we are doing well with time. However, as we get closer to the finished product , she cannot seem to tease my hair in the way she would like and she spends too much valuable time on it. I am getting very antsy as I am already scheduled to do makeup and she is nowhere near done with my hair. I had to beg the makeup lady to do my makeup at the same time as hair is being done. In the end, it took over three hours for my hair to be done despite promises of it taking 2 hours. It was an extremely stressful experience making me very late to my own wedding. Not to mention the salon didn't even have time to accommodate half of my bridesmaids. The half that were even able to get hair scheduled had to wait 1 to 2 hours between their hair and makeup appointments, and they were also not given enough time to be ready on time. The only reason I give three stars instead of two is because the bridesmaids and I did look good in the end and my stylist was a very nice lady. But other than that, the experience was extremely stressful and not worth it on your wedding day.

this was my second choice, but my first choice was booked solid on the day of my wedding. I brought my bridesmaids and the mothers of both me and my husband here for some pre-wedding pampering and we all had a lovely relaxed morning. Rockford is about an hours drive from our wedding venue of White Pines Inn, but the girls at the salon did an amazing job. The did a wonderful job on my hair (which is notoriously difficult to work with), and the mani-pedi's were great. I couldn't have asked for a better way to start the day :) The only downside was the distance from the wedding site meaning timing was crucial, and they didn't have quite all of the nail colours they advertised (rotation of stock i guess) but the girls at the salon were friendly, skilled and accommodating. If I'd had more time I would have liked to try more of their services.