Doing make-up for a wedding is like being an air hostess. If the bride looks at you and you’re panicking, it ruins the wedding,” says Rhona Cullinan of The Powder Room Girls, a bridal agency that comes to your house and provides a one-stop service for hair and make-up on your big day.

“The make-up artist fits the veil, zips up the dress, puts the ribbons on the car and looks after the flowers,” says Rhona. “They’ll also lock up the house and put out a fire,” she laughs. (She’s not exaggerating – one bride, who was in the middle of cooking breakfast, went outside to get phone reception so she could give the florist directions, she closed the grill behind her – and you can guess what happened next.)

“Make-up is actually the least part of your job,” laughs Rhona.

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And apparently sewing the bride into the dress is a regular thing.

“The zips often burst because they are very bad quality. They are made for one wear only. It even happens if you’re a size eight. We bring an emergency kit every time.”

Starting out

The Powder Room Girls came into being as a result of a conversation between make-up artist Rhona and hairdresser Susan Peggs. They were talking about all the work they’d turned down for weddings and how they had difficulty recommending someone else who they knew was reliable.

Both ladies had heard of each other through other weddings. Six weeks after that conversation, The Powder Room Girls was born – at the start of the recession in 2007.

They started off with one other make-up artist and hairdresser, and now, seven years later, they have a team of 23 working for them across the country and an additional five in their Kingswood, Dublinbased salon.

Their team of 23 are sub-contracted to work under The Powder Room Girls name. Rhona says each team member does two to three weddings a week in busy times and one a week when it’s not as busy, so they also need to be working freelance themselves. Susan’s sister Yvonne also works for them “on the computer making sure weddings aren’t double-booked.”

Training course

They train the girls they hire on their own course, for free. It’s an apprentice course that runs one day a week for 12 weeks.

“It’s extremely intensive,” says Rhona. “It’s very hands-on. You spend half a day doing eyeliner and another half a day doing red lips.”

However, this isn’t all the bridal team learn, they’re also taught some wedding essentials such as how to do up the back of a dress and where to put flowers.

The good news is that The Powder Room Girls are recruiting. In fact, they are “constantly looking for the right people”. They are currently looking for hairdressers and make-up artists in Kerry, west Cork, Donegal and Northern Ireland.

They are interested in older employees, such as mums who have been out of work for a while and want to get back into it. Rhona and Susan feel younger people don’t have the life experience required to handle weddings. For hairdressing, they are specifically looking for qualified hairdressers with upstyling experience, though training will be given.

In terms of personal qualities, they are looking for people who are passionate, conscientious, professional (“no matter what’s going on in your life you can’t show it”), have a good attitude and are friendly and accommodating. They also want to see personality, skills, willingness to work as a team member and loyalty.

“You really have to listen to what the client wants,” says Susan. “People say to me when I do their hair: ‘It’s like as if you were in my head’. That’s because I listen.”

Rhona says that the biggest misconception young people have coming into the industry is “they think the day they finish the course they’re going to work on a celebrity. They think they’re going to work on a fashion show with MAC and Vivienne Westwood and all of that.

“For one, fashion shows don’t pay,” says Rhona. “Theatre work is zero pay. And you won’t start doing weddings tomorrow because people book everything a year in advance.

“Magazine and television work is badly paid, if paid at all. I worked in TV3 for years, but it took a lot of hard work to get into it. The celebrities I would do on a regular basis are celebrities I’ve done for nine or 10 years and they just like my style and call me back every time. The biggest thing is reputation – getting the repeat work – and that’s by going the extra mile. For example, I minded the dog while one of my clients went for a shower.”

Susan and Rhona’s favourite celebrities are Colleen Rooney (“she was getting us tea and coffee”) and Rosanna Davison (“she’s so grateful and down-to-earth. She’s very intelligent and very naturally beautiful.”)

In terms of bridal make-up trends, Rhona says heavier eyes and lighter lips are popular at the moment.

“The trend for hair at the moment is very relaxed, natural, organised messy, not very structured – nearly bohemian,” says Susan. “If structured, it’s vintage. Buns are more vintage.”

Rhona says styles are very much influenced by red carpet events, particularly the Oscars, and people like Eva Longoria and Kate Middleton are the most channelled celebrities. They say the Kardashians style is also very popular, with clients looking for their contouring.

“It looks ridiculous on normal people and we have to tell them this subtly,” laughs Rhona.

Commitment is very much the name of this game. Rhona and Susan have worked weekends for the past 30 years.

“What social life?” is the response Irish Country Living is met with when we ask about their weekends. The ladies say they can be found in their pyjamas at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night. But they don’t mind the long hours.

“We absolutely love our job,” says Rhona. “We are very passionate about it, we are very professional and we have so much experience.”

And it seems their hard work has paid off. At the RSVP awards they were deemed Bridal Suppliers of the Year, Rhona was awarded IBPA make-up artist of the year in 2008 and they are currently up for Best Wedding Hair Stylist and Best Wedding Make-Up Artist at the Mrs2Be Brides’ Choice Awards 2014.

Their next big gig is The Rose of Tralee. The Powder Room Girls sponsor the hair and make-up for all the Roses for both live shows – that’s 35 Roses per night, as well as the judges, and they are bringing 10 hair stylists and 10 make-up artists down to Kerry for the job.

However, between now and then they’ll be kept busy with weddings. While many things can wreak havoc on the big day, the ladies are adamant that an indecisive bride poses the greatest threat.

“When a bride says: ‘I’m not fussy at all,’ alarm bells start ringing,” laughs Susan.

• The 12-week make-up course costs €1,495 if done privately. For more information, visit the website www.thepowderroomgirls.com or call 01-4033-050. CL