The countdown: timing treatments before a wedding or big event

The most common preparation mistake is not choosing the wrong treatment. It is choosing the right treatment too late.

Work backwards from the date. Everything else follows.

Six months out — start anything structural

This is when courses begin. Anything requiring multiple sessions plus a settling period needs to start here.

• Polynucleotide or Profhilo courses.
• Microneedling courses for texture or scarring.
• PRP for hair — this one needs the full six months to show anything.
• Any first-time injectable, so there is room to adjust at review.
• Fat-dissolving treatment, which needs multiple sessions with six weeks between them.

The reason is simple: if something does not suit you, six months is enough time to change course. Six weeks is not.

Three months out — the last sensible start

Still time for a shorter course and a settling period.

• A Green Peel course of two, four to six weeks apart.
• An Ejal 40 hydration course.
• The second half of anything started at six months.
• A first anti-wrinkle treatment, allowing a two-week review and a second cycle before the day.

Six weeks out — the last injectable window

Anti-wrinkle treatment at six weeks is well judged: fully settled, still at full effect on the day, and with time for a review adjustment at week four if needed.

Final sessions of any ongoing course should land here. Nothing new should be introduced.

One month out — finishing, not starting

• A Deluxe or Platinum 3D HydrO2 facial to decongest.
• A final skin-booster session if it is part of an established course.
• Nothing you have not had before. This is the firm rule.

Two weeks out — stop

This is the line. Nothing injectable, nothing resurfacing, nothing new.

The reason is bruising. Even treatments that rarely bruise occasionally do, and a bruise takes seven to ten days to resolve. At two weeks you have a margin. At one week you do not.

The only things reasonable inside two weeks:

• An Express 3D HydrO2 facial at five days out — no closer.
• Your normal skincare routine, unchanged.
• A facial you have had many times before, with the same therapist.

The week itself

• Nothing new on your skin. Not a sheet mask, not a sample, not a friend's recommendation.
• No new products at all, however gentle they sound.
• Keep hydrated and go easy on salt and alcohol — puffiness is the most common day-of complaint and it is almost entirely dietary.
• Sleep, as far as that is possible.

A worked six-month plan

Roughly £1,470 across six months, with nothing rushed and a review built in. Compare that with attempting the same list in eight weeks, which would be both more expensive in stress and considerably worse in outcome.

If you have left it late

If the event is in three weeks and nothing has been done, the honest advice is to keep it simple. A 3D HydrO2 facial at five days out, good sleep, controlled salt and alcohol, and your usual routine will serve you far better than an ambitious treatment with an uncertain settling period.

The worst outcome is not an untreated face. It is a bruised one.