Hair and makeup for your wedding at Penha Longa

Penha Longa sits inland from Cascais at Linhó, inside the Sintra-Cascais natural park. The useful thing about it, for a wedding morning, is that it is reached from the Cascais side rather than through Sintra town. That avoids the single worst piece of road in the region on a summer Saturday, which is the climb up to the historic centre of Sintra.

From central Lisbon the drive is usually in the 35 to 45 minute range, longer on a Friday evening. From Cascais it is around 15 minutes. If a large part of your party is staying in Cascais rather than in town, the morning becomes considerably simpler, and the start time can sit later.

Penha Longa operates as a resort, which changes the shape of the morning compared with a private quinta. There are hotel rooms, which means the bride and the party are usually getting ready in a proper bedroom with a bathroom, a desk and reliable power, rather than in a borrowed room in a historic house.

That is genuinely easier to work in. A desk gives the kit somewhere to live, a bathroom gives somewhere to wash brushes, and a window in a modern room gives usable light without hunting for it. We still bring a mirror light, because a hotel room lit for the evening is not lit for foundation at ten in the morning.

Room access and supplier arrival times are set by the property per booking. Confirm them directly rather than assuming a bridal suite is available from breakfast.

The estate sits in a hollow among hills, which makes it noticeably calmer than the coast a few kilometres west. Guincho, on the other side of the ridge, is one of the windiest places on this coast. Penha Longa is not. That opens up looser styles that would not survive a beach ceremony.

The trade is humidity. Being inside the Sintra-Cascais park means damp air, particularly in the morning and particularly in spring and autumn, so smooth hair softens over a long day. The right answer is usually a style that is designed to relax rather than one that is fighting to stay glass-flat.

If the ceremony or the drinks are on grass with a view, expect a breeze in the late afternoon even on a still day. It is worth deciding in advance whether the hair is up, half-up or genuinely down, rather than deciding at four o'clock with a photographer waiting.

Because Penha Longa has rooms on site, more of the wedding party tends to sleep at the venue than at a bare quinta. That concentrates the morning in one building, which is the best possible case for a single artist working through several people in sequence.

Guests who are not on site usually stay in Cascais or in Lisbon. Anyone who wants hair or makeup before travelling out books it where they are staying. Tell us early if that is more than one or two people, because the travel between hotels is what limits how many appointments fit into a morning.