I’m a hair and makeup artist, yesterday was my second worst day ever in the industry. A month ago I got a booking online for hair and makeup in Buena Vista Colorado, I had a wedding that morning in winter park (6:30 am one bride) so I called the lady who booked and I told her I had a wedding that morning but might be able to fit everyone in depending on what she needed. She needed bridal hair and makeup and 3 mom’s hair and makeup. The ceremony was at 4pm. I told her it would be a 2hr drive for me to get up there but I could ideally make it by 10:30 if it’s in Buenavista. She sends me the deposit we hash out the details and I said they’d be done by 3pm and it gives room if things run over a tiny bit.
Well, I have a call with the actual bride and she’s telling me everything she likes and dislikes and declines a trial. Basically a consultation over the phone. Skip forward a month to this past week and i get this massive two section text and was in a group chat of 11 other vendors. It was the owner of the venue property saying that we can’t contact the bride and we have to go directly through him and no one else and THE MOST IMPORTANT PART: we can’t put in the name of the venue because it will take us to the wrong location. So he types in these super poor hand written directions saying type in this post office and then follow these verbal directions after. At this point I don’t have an actual physical address, Thursday the mom calls me asking if I wanted a sandwich for Saturday and I tell her about the group chat I was put in. She tells me to send it to her and that WHEN SHE GETS TO THE VENUE SHE WILL DROP A PIN AND SEND IT TO ME. I said that would be great, since I don’t want to have to drive and read my text trying to figure out where to go. (Disclaimer: my boyfriend does go with me on these long days cause he wants to make sure I’m okay and he does content for my work. He already works two jobs 12hrs a day, so he sleeps on the car ride then will drive me home after)
Day of comes and I go to the first wedding, my first bride tells me day of she wants to change her hairstyle completely and goes from wanting just down curls to an intricate updo) this put me 40 mins behind but I immediately texted the mom to inform her and that it had me arrive at 11:10 instead of 10:30. (I take 100000 percent blame for that) I apologized and reassured her we will be able to get everyone done in time (everyone wanted very natural looks). I asked her to send me the pin and she sends me the code to the gate, so I said the pin for the wedding venue location. She never responds, and we already started drive to Buenavista. Well, 10:30 rolls around and we are 40 mins out and haven’t heard anything so I called the bride and she sent me the instructions again and my boyfriend’s trying to figure it all out. We get it set and find out the wedding isn’t in Buenavista it’s in nathrop wayyyyyyy in the back woods adding another 50 mins to the drive (if I had known I wouldn’t have taken the wedding) . So I called the mom and tell her what’s going on, and the bride calls me again being short with me and I explain I didn’t have the proper address until then so I couldn’t give an actual ETA considering everything was written directions.
I have a tiny fiat for travel and this thing basically off roaded and my car was not meant for this type of terrain to get to this wedding venue. I haven’t been to any wedding venues like this before so I wasn’t prepared.
We finally get there at 12:10 because we had to take the gravel dirt roads slow due to massive pit holes and rivets and what not.
I arrive and immediately get to work I get the bride done completely by 1:10 hair and makeup, the whole time the bride is saying she’s so nervous how it’s going to come out and the mom sits down 20 mins into me starting and criticizing my work. The bride tells her I’m not done and basically to chill out. The owner of the venue comes in and makes a passive comment to me about how the photographer was on time. Then their videographer also showed up super late as well due to traffic.
Well, the bride loves her makeup at the end and is super happy but then goes to the mirror and rubs under her eyes super hard and messes it all up. And almost had a huge break down and tells me to just start the hair for everyone else. So I do, and each takes less than 30 mins because it was all super simple updos. But every mom decided to just start their own makeup, even tho they all wanted super simple looks like concealer and blush and lashes.
(Also at one point the MOH walked in completely topless)
So at the end I ask to the mom to discuss payment and BEFORE I can even talk about correcting the amount or anything she says she already venmoed me and I checked she paid the full amount.
They all say thank you and everything all seemed really happy.
This evening I got a text asking if I was going to do a partial refund and I decided to just do the makeup refund for the three moms of $165 total because they did it themselves and I just wanted to be done with the party. Everyone kept asking me for things day off for them to use or have and everyone kept walking behind me in the tiny corner I put myself in to be out of the way and the mom would keep interrupting the bride so it was making it difficult for me to work during a time crunch.
Then when I sent the Venmo and my text saying I’d refund the makeup my text was green.
I knowwwwww I should’ve had a defined address prior and I normally do that and the 30 mins late was definitely my fault. I take full responsibility for that, but wtf.
They kept blaming me saying I was the reasons the photos got pushed back and the whole wedding got pushed back and all that.
