A bride wants to look her very best on her wedding day. For that reason, many brides hire a makeup professional. In fact, 73% of couples told The Knot that the hair and makeup costs are worth it and that they hired a beauty professional. Despite being a makeup artist herself, this bride hired a professional acquaintance to do her makeup for her wedding.
However, she couldn’t finish the job because of feeling sick. Interestingly, the bridal party later found out that the “sickness” was due to lip injections and wasn’t that bad at all. After finding out she was bragging about the “easy money” online, the bride’s sister started to consider taking legal action.
A bride hired a makeup artist for her wedding but had to dismiss her for feeling unwell
Image credits: shohaggraphicdesigner / freepik (not the actual photo)
Later, she found out that the beauty professional wasn’t sick at all and just scammed her
Image credits: beststudio / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Fun-Mushroom-4708
Hiring a freelance makeup artist can be more flexible and create a more intimate environment for the bride
In her post, the bride’s sister doesn’t mention whether the makeup artist they hired was a freelancer or a salon professional. However, hiring freelance artists can often be less reliable, especially for such a special occasion as a wedding.
According to The Knot, the average cost of hiring a professional to do your wedding hair and makeup is $290. And when you add gratuity (which wedding etiquette experts strongly advise on), the cost might rise to almost $300. On the other hand, the stress of having your beauty professional bail on you on your wedding day probably costs a bride even more.
Sources report that about 65% of American brides choose to hire makeup artists who can travel to their venue. It’s understandable why many brides veer toward hiring freelance makeup artists. They tend to be cheaper, but they are also more flexible with their time and can arrive almost anywhere a bride asks them to.
Hiring such a professional who works solo can also make the experience more intimate. It’s not as intimidating as a busy salon environment or even when several freelance artists set up camp in the bride’s bedroom or hotel room.
In some cases, however, the fee might be higher if the artist has to travel far or is a premium professional. After all, good makeup artists use products that can withstand humidity, tears, and an entire day of festivities.
Still, hiring a freelance makeup artist also has its disadvantages. The bride in this story experienced one of them, and perhaps the worst one: having the makeup artist bail and leave the bride to do her makeup herself on the big day.
Other brides have shared similar stories of how they were scammed by their makeup artists
It’s hard to say just how common bridal makeup scams are. But some brides have shared how unlucky they were with the beauty professional of their choice. One bride, who told her story to Refinery29, said that her mother had to step in to do her hair when her hair and makeup person didn’t show up.
“In retrospect, it was lovely for my mom to do my hair because my husband and I did a lot of the wedding planning ourselves, so she then ended up having a really important role to play. Don’t trust someone with a shady track record,” she advises. “Do trust your mom.”
Checking the makeup artist’s track record online seems like a must before hiring them. Another bride, Elizabeth Huberman, told CNBC how her makeup artist bailed on her wedding day, too. However, after looking her up more thoroughly when the wedding was over, she found that the beauty professional had a shady reputation.
“I was in the parking lot of the hotel, bawling my eyes out,” Huberman recalled. They even did a trial run of the whole look; yet, when the day came, the makeup artist was nowhere to be found. Huberman paid her a $100 deposit and covered her travel expenses. Together with the trial look, it all cost the bride $395. Money which she never got back.
Commenters supported the decision to take the scammer to court: “She had lied and taken advantage of your sympathy”
