Bridal Makeup Artist Details Most ‘Traumatic’ Experience with Client (Exclusive)

Selena Marchand has been honing her craft as a makeup artist for over 20 years — and has accumulated her fair share of wild stories in the process.

The content creator and makeup artist, 41, writes skits based on her real-life interactions with brides and other clients, and shares them with her 1.5 million followers across social channels.

She tells PEOPLE, however, that there was one experience with a particular bride that was especially “traumatic.” 

“She had come for a couple of trials, and at her first trial, she just brought up my Instagram and said, ‘I don’t like anything that you do.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, why are you here?'” Marchand recalls.

“Then the second time she brought her mom, she hated all of them, basically. Then on the wedding day, I think we had gotten down to a look that she actually liked,” she adds.

When the bride looked in the mirror on her big day, however, she told Marchand that she “absolutely hated it.” 

“It was exactly what we had created that she liked. Then she was running all over the house, crying, very dramatically,” Marchand recalls. “It’s embarrassing, too, because there are lots of other people there.”

“Makeup is so personal,” she adds. “When someone says that they don’t like it, I don’t mind, but when they’re making a big commotion about it, it’s like you feel very small and you feel like crawling into a corner and just withering away,” Marchand says. 

Still, she tried to stay as calm as possible and remind her bride that nothing is permanent.

“It’s makeup, so it can be changed. It’s not the end of the world. I kept changing things, and she eventually got happy, maybe after an hour and a half,” she says. “But it’s just, like, adjusting, going, ‘Okay, let’s adjust.’ I try to keep them calm as well and say, like, ‘It’s makeup. We can change it. We could start over if we need to.’ ”

“It’s not that big of a deal. I leave time for those sorts of situations,” she adds, noting that, eventually, it all worked out.

Shockingly, Marchand says the woman has tried to book her a few times since then — but she has denied the requests.

Ironically, a few years ago, another bride booked Marchand for a makeup trial, and the woman showed up to the trial with her. 

“This girl was a bridesmaid. When I saw her walking to the door, I wanted to die because I knew I was gonna have to redo her makeup,” she says, noting that the wedding was ultimately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t have to redo her makeup,” she says.

The incident is just one example of the types of experiences Marchand reenacts online, from brides showing up with bad sunburns, refusing to pay and arriving half asleep.

She notes that “99%” of her videos are from her “own experience,” but she occasionally takes creative liberties.

“If something in the wedding industry goes really viral that has to do with a makeup artist, I’ll recreate it. I’ve only done that once,” she tells PEOPLE. “But all the other ones have actually happened to me, so I don’t need any inspiration. I think in my mind, ‘What are some crazy things that have happened to me?’ And I’ve got content for years.”

She says the reason her videos “seem so emotional” is because she knows exactly how the situation made her feel in real life.

“I really think back to that moment of how I felt, and that’s what I try to portray,” she shares. 

With such a big following online, she says brides often come to her saying, “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna be crazy like those people that you have online.” 

“But then they end up being crazy. They say, ‘I’m gonna be so respectful, blah, blah.’ I’m like, ‘Sure, yeah,'” she says. “Most of my clients are respectful, but some will say that, and then I show up on the wedding day, and they’re still asleep or acting crazy. I’m like, ‘You couldn’t do it.’ ”

However, she notes that wedding days are full of big emotions and can cause uncharacteristic behavior from typically level-headed people.

“Wedding days are a very specific day where it is stressful, so things do tend to happen, and that’s why some people are like, ‘I don’t believe that this happened,’ but anyone who actually works in the wedding industry knows you wouldn’t believe what happens on a wedding day,” Marchand shares.