The Story ¦ My Summer Ball

*Apologies for images. I had to get them off of the website as my parents have yet to buy them!*

*Also the rights to these images belong to Aaron Lord Photography, I take no credit for these images*

With proms, balls, parties etc coming up I thought I would do a bit of a flashback to my Summer Ball. It was only last year but I already know it will be a day that'll stick in my mind forever. For the very reason that it was the first time I had felt truly beautiful and truly myself. I had been through a lot with my weight, depression and just not feeling comfortable with myself. Nobody every looked at me and said, "She's so pretty." No-one used to stop and stare at me before, but since that night my entire perception of myself changed.

I basically saw this as my "do-over prom". Prom (Year 11, 2012) was very rushed for me and nothing went right. My dress was horrible, my hair was horrendous and everything was just wrong. I wasn't originally going to go to prom, hence the rush. So when Summer Ball came around I knew I had time to plan. We had to decide pretty quickly whether or not we wanted to go so I had a good 7 months for prep time. Time to experiment with make-up, hair, outfit choices. I experimented with my make-up a lot and I'll be doing a post tomorrow on how I did this and recreating the look for your guys. I couldn't really experiment too much until I chose my dress, however, but I did find my right foundation, the concealer and products that would last on my skin.

Once I got my dress which, after a lot of looking, turned out to be this very basic blue jersey dress from Boohoo, I knew how everything was going to go down. I was heavily inspired by Kate Middleton for my look and it happened to be a mix of her engagement outfit with her wedding hair & make-up. Because my dress was blue I tried a blue smokey eye, but that didn't fit right. I wanted something timeless. That I would look back on and love. In the end I opted for a brown smokey eye, perfected & blushed skin with a nude lip. It was perfect.

Then for my hair I knew I wanted big bouncy curls. I did not know that it was going to chuck down with rain and my curls would look very un-perfected before we even got to the venue. I washed my hair a few hours before and let it air dry. I then pin curled it into place, hair sprayed it and left it for a good 4 hours while I did my make-up and generally faffed around. I then gently brushed out the curls and backcombed the base of it. I then took two pieces of hair, put them to the back of my head, joojed it up and pinned it into place. It was a perfect Bardot, 60's look.

*Sophie, Me and Bethany*

I then paired my blue dress with black tights, black court heels and a rose gold belt. The belt matched perfectly to my nails (after days of experimenting), I wore 1 bracelet (a very special number that has only ever made an appearance at this event) and had a pair of simple diamond studded ball studs. I loved myself. I had worked for months to see that everything went perfect and I felt proud; like Dr Frankenstein, when his creation comes to life. I know this may sound a little bit pathetic to you and some of you might not understand it but this was a huge deal for me. It was like my "coming out" party. People I had never spoken to before, complimented me. These were people who I thought didn't even like me.

I impressed them but more importantly I impressed myself. This was my real turning point in coming out of my "ugly duckling" phase and everything has just been up-hill from here. I feel confident about my looks. I look at myself and I am happy. I'm happy with my appearance. Yes I get insecure about my weight, but I'm COMFORTABLE. And that's the most important thing isn't it? Being comfortable with who you are. Sorry this was kind of long but it's been over a year since my Summer Ball and I just really wanted to document where I am now. And to let you all know that it gets better. Hope you're all well.