What’s a wedding without vast preparation? Believe it or not, the best time to start thinking about these treatments, if possible, is at least six months before your wedding. Don’t panic if your wedding is sooner, but here’s why it’s best to prep in advance and why the treatments may or may not be a good option for you.

Everyone wants to look and feel their best for their wedding and for many people they have been preparing for this day for over two or even three years with Covid causing havoc with wedding plans.

It’s understandable that if you’ve always wanted a treatment, your wedding feels like the time to get it. Injectable treatments with fillers, wrinkle relaxing injections or skin treatments such as Profhilo or skin boosters can enhance your natural beauty, help improve self confidence and help give the face a youthful and fresh look. One thing that may be holding you back from these treatments though is the fear of not wanting to look fake, a fear of something going wrong and that you just won’t look like you. We’ve worked with many brides and grooms over the years and completely understand why you may feel apprehension. Your wedding is not the time for risks and that’s where timing is key.

The No Filter Clinic was founded on the belief that the best injectable treatments should be unnoticed. People should notice you look well or fresh or that your skin looks great. They should not be able to put a finger on what you have had, unless they have a very good eye and get these things themselves! Our philosophy is that fillers should never be obvious and wrinkle relaxing injections should never freeze your face. Sometimes it may feel like you haven’t seen great pictures or examples of filler and wrinkle relaxing injections, you’ve only been bombarded with images of overfilled faces and shocking botched examples, it’s a media favourite to spotlight extreme cases. It is also completely normal to only notice ‘bad’ work because it stands out. Good work goes unnoticed and the type of people that get natural work done are also the same people that are reluctant to be open about it. Have a friend who looks amazing for her age? I bet you she has had some tweaks but does not want to share. There is a lot of stigma and judgement still attached to injectable treatments sadly so it is no surprise that people want to keep it to themselves.

Fillers and wrinkle relaxing injections have become extremely commercialised over the last few years which has, unfortunately, led to a lot of people becoming injectors who in our opinion shouldn’t be. Your face is precious and we firmly believe that only a medical professional should be able to treat it. Everyone at the No Filter Clinic is a medical professional that has undergone intense training which will massively help minimise risk. Sadly there is no ‘safe filler’, however, being with the right injector who puts you before their pocket will definitely minimise the risk to give you the safest possible procedure and deal with any complications.

A wedding is not the time to take a risk with treatment. The last thing you want is to regret the treatment on your wedding day, don’t do things on a whim just to try them out, try and give yourself time and do the research to plan the treatments in advance. The more time you have the more experimental you can be.

One of the reasons we also like you to have the treatment in advance is because there is a very rare risk of haematomas with all treatments. Hematomas are a very large deep collections of blood. If in the very unlikely chance this did happen it can take 2 months to fully resolve.

It’s best to start thinking about this 1 year - 6 months before your wedding to give yourself time to find a clinic you like the results of, have your consultation and find a slot to book in that works for you.

LIPS

We would advise you to get lip fillers at least 2-3 months before your wedding. The longevity of lip fillers will usually be around 6 - 9 months and the downtime following injection is around 3-4 weeks. Although most lip swelling resolves by 2 weeks, some people still have a small amount of swelling and tiny lumps that can take 4 weeks to resolve. Allotting that time gives you the assurance that the swelling would have fully subsided by then. Having filler 2 - 3 months before also gives you a bit of time to live with the lip fillers and just get used to them. You may also find that when the swelling subsides, perhaps you should have had a bit more. This allows you time to get adjustments.

TEAR TROUGH

For tear trough fillers we recommend you having them ideally at least 4 months before your big day. The downtime for this treatment is 2 weeks and the fillers last for 9-12 months. We recommend having this treatment 4 months before your wedding or event because swelling can show up a couple of months after treatment. Having fillers 4 months before your treatment leaves enough time for it to go down or for us to fix it if any swelling did occur.

NOSE FILLER

We advise getting nose filler ideally at least 2 months before your wedding. The downtime of the mild swelling post-injection will usually last for about 2 weeks but some people will need top-ups of the nose filler after the initial swelling has subsided 4 weeks later. Enough time needs to be left for the mild swelling to subside from the first treatment, potentially time for a top-up of the filler and then downtime for the top-up. The longevity of nose filler is about 12-18 months.

CHEEKS, JAWLINE AND CHIN FILLER

Chin, jawline and cheek filler would ideally be injected at least 6-8 weeks before your wedding. Like nose filler, once the mild swelling from this treatment has subsided you may need a small top-up of the filler to get your desired result. It’s always best to start with slightly less filler and build you up to your desired result. This ensures you are never in a position where you feel like the filler is too much. The longevity for cheeks, jawline and chin filler is 12-18 months and the downtime for all the treatments is about 2-4 weeks.

WRINKLE RELAXING INJECTIONS

Ideally don’t try wrinkle relaxing injections for the first time before your big day. It takes time for your injector to understand your face and it takes time for you to live with the treatment and see if you like the amount of movement you have. For example, if we need to go heavier or lighter next time on the forehead wrinkles. Some people like more smile lines around their eyes for a more expressive smile and some people like less. Remember, you start getting some movement around 8 weeks, this is normal. If you can start getting wrinkle relaxing injections around 6 months before your wedding, or ideally a year, this will help your injector get to know your face and it gives you a chance to really think about what you want to get from them.

CHEMICAL PEELS, FACIALS AND ANY OTHER SKIN TREATMENTS

It’s best to have facials, chemical peels and any other skin treatments about 6 weeks before the big day, especially for something like a chemical peel. If you’re having a facial, and have been working with your facialist for a long time and have had the facial before then you may be able to get this closer to the wedding. The rule is don’t get any new facial treatments in the 6 weeks leading up to your wedding as you never know how your skin could react. For chemical peels and more invasive skin treatments, you should never have these within 6 weeks of the big day.

PROFHILO

For Profhilo, we would recommend having your first ever treatment 10 weeks before the big day. The first time you get Profhilo, you need two sessions around a month apart. The results are only seen a month after your second session. If you have had Profhilo in the last 6 months you only need one session which can be 4-6 weeks before your wedding.

SKIN BOOSTERS

Skin boosters is an injectable treatment, they contain a form of hyaluronic acid that does not volumise your face at all, it rejuvenates your skin from the inside. Some people call it an injectable moisturiser. We use skin boosters that also contain antioxidants to further enhance your skin and give you a glow from the inside. Skin boosters treat the more superficial layers of the skin (Profhilo is deeper) and can safely be used on the forehead whereas Profhilo cannot. People often get both Profhilo and skin boosters before a big event. Skin boosters require 2-3 sessions weekly and results are seen after a few weeks so we would advise starting these at least 6 weeks before your wedding or event.

MORPHEUS 8

Morpheus 8 is an extremely effective and potent skin rejuvenating and tightening machine that utilises radiofrequency with microneedling. It has taken the world by storm for its incredible results. You normally need 3 sessions monthly and results are seen a month or two after the final session. We recommend starting this treatment at least 5 months before your big day.

LUMECCA/IPL/LASER SKIN REJUVENATION

These are also very potent machines that use light energy to rejuvenate your skin from the inside, build collagen, tighten skin, break down pigment, even out skin tone and remove redness/broken capillaries. They normally require 3-6 sessions and we would recommend starting a course at least 3 months before your big day.