(Find our more about our bride with Alopecia bridal range here.)

Bride with Alopecia tells all about her search ‘beyond the dress’

You know that feeling you get on certain days that you’re literally surrounded by beautiful, bouncing, shiny manes of hair everywhere you look – on the television, on billboards, hanging from the head of the woman walking in front of you? Well, it turns out that being a bride-to-be with alopecia is full of these moments.

As embarrassed as I feel admitting it, the elation I felt when my boyfriend of five years proposed was a little dampened when I finally asked myself the big question that nearly all hair-free women confronted with a big occasion have faced at some point: what on earth was I going to do with my head?

Bride with Alopecia – bridal headwear without hair

Glossy bridal magazines are stuffed with tips for ‘wedding day hair’, from romantic ringlets to sophisticated chignons, all devised to complement the dress on top of which they perch. Everywhere I looked, hairstyling was being touted as an integral part of ‘my’ bridal look – so where did that leave me?

Even when, on rare occasions, these mainstream magazines presented photoshoots on so-called ‘bridal headwear’, I excitedly rushed from the contents page to the article in question only to discover that in this context headwear meant butterfly hair ornaments, delicate jewelled hairband or – at a push – fifties-style fascinators with miniature white top hats. Needless to say, none of these options provided the kind of, shall we say, ‘coverage’ I was looking for…

Bald bride beanie? No thanks!

I was absolutely certain of one thing: I didn’t want to just wear an ‘everyday’ headcovering translated into white. This option was certainly open to me, even if it didn’t explicitly call itself ‘bridal headwear’. I could have bought a close-fitting, 20s-style sleep cap in ivory or cream direct from the internet and perhaps pinned an applique flower to it, or have bought a silk scarf in a shade that matched my dress and worn that low around my head. I could even have plumped for a light-shade Buff and accessorised that. But as much of a foot-stamping ‘Bridezilla’ this makes me sound, none of these options felt special enough for my wedding day.

It quickly became very clear that whatever headwear I chose would end up being as much a part of my overall look as the dress. My initial reaction was one of self-indulgent frustration: a ‘normal’ bride-to-be in front of the mirror in Pronuptia isn’t constantly asking herself exactly how her hair must be styled with this or that particular dress, so wasn’t it unfair that my head(wear) was ruling my heart?

It wasn’t too long before I snapped up my ‘perfect dress’ – a flowing yet simple empire-line gown in ivory satin – but as the weeks went by was becoming increasingly worried at just what I’d wear on my head to accompany it.

Now, the essential problem. The web is a veritable goldmine of information and advice concerning alopecia, and certainly isn’t short of companies offering increasingly stylish everyday headwear, but on the subject of wedding wear for those with my condition the lines were uncharacteristically silent.

I could find no-one who made off-the-peg headwear specifically for women like me – only those very brides asking ‘but what am I going to wear on my head?!’ on numerous forums and message boards. (They weren’t the only ones wondering.)

However, it was at this point I realised something – I was totally ignoring the one great strength those of us with alopecia possess: adaptability. We co-opt scarves meant for our necks to decorate our heads, or use everyday makeup to fool the rest of the world into thinking we never lost our eyebrows and eyelashes.

Google search – ‘bald head accessories for women’

So if Google wasn’t going to be of service with ‘alopecia bridalwear’ per se, I was determined to use it to the fullest when it came to visual inspiration. I loved the chic, closefitting caps of the 20s and 30s, and how women of that era wore headpieces not to conceal, but to flaunt and to celebrate. Moreover, I knew this look suited me and that I’d feel comfortable wearing it on the day (in the same way that, had I still had hair I’d have been unlikely to opt for a wedding day perm).

Confronted with the lack of choice out there, and determined to feel good on my wedding day, I decided to have a headpiece made for me. I loved the retro-style caps available from Suburban Turban, so Nicky Zip was my first choice for the design of my wedding headpiece. I not only showed her my dress so that she could colour-match the cap, but a selection of images collected online to build up a picture of what I was looking for.

The end result had to be chic, wearable, long-lasting (I wanted to be dancing the night away unconcerned by thoughts of a flying headdress) and totally comfortable – as well as providing the kind of coverage I needed to feel happy in my own skin. Quite a brief.

For someone who likes to think of herself as reasonably adventurous, it’s hard to admit that when working with Nicky to create the perfect headwear, the one sticking point in the creative process was my own surprising reluctance to ‘let go’. Nicky assured me that from her designer’s viewpoint and years of experience, this headpiece needed a sense of drama, theatricality even, if it was to rise above being a mere head ‘covering’ and become a perfect part of my wedding ensemble.

Yet as excited as I was about being the ‘main event’ at my own wedding, a small part of me was suprised to suddenly feel as I did years ago when I first lost my hair aged nineteen – like I wanted to just blend into the background. The idea of an eye-catching, attention-demanding headpiece was suddenly worrying me – wasn’t I just advertising the fact that I didn’t look like a ‘normal’ bride, and drawing all eyes to the fact that I’d lost my hair?

The answer was, of course: no. With sensitivity and tact, Nicky managed to persuade me that a sense of occasion was entirely appropriate to this design, and I trusted her enough to know what she was talking about. When she handed me the hat to try on for the first time, I knew she’d been right all along: I’d got my perfect Thirties cap, complete with stylised 30s-inspired fabric rosettes matching the tone and style of my dress perfectly and doing things for my cheekbones I’d never seen before.

The chief joy of having my headpiece made was, appropriately, the very adaptability I like to see in myself and those women like me. I had fallen in love with the idea of a traditional veil, but was totally torn between having a long veil cascading over my shoulders, and a chic birdcage veil pinned in 1950s fashion across my face.

In the end, we decided: why not do both? Nicky fitted a series of discreet fastenings to the back of the headpiece, concealed by a band of fabric, to which could attach a long veil or a shorter birdcage veil, allowing me to decide which one I wanted to wear on the day – or both. And on the day, I woke up – and realised I was in a birdcage veil kind of a mood; a wonderful bit of flexibility and spontaneity which reminded me that my wedding day was supposed to be fun, too.

When I look back at my wedding photos now, and how thrilled I look in every single one of them, it’s hard to believe I was quite so worried about how I’d look – and more importantly, feel – on my wedding day. As much as I loved my dress – doesn’t every bride? – my headpiece was the star, not only in my eyes, but for everyone who was there, too (including my now-husband). For better or for worse, my lack of hair is an integral part of me now, and there was nothing concealing about my cap. In fact, in the end, it felt like a celebration.

Carly blogs about hair-loss beauty as EyelineHer (http://eyelineher.blogspot.com/)

Find our more about our bride with Alopecia bridal range here.