Hair and Makeup Artists being Cagey about final price and fees??

Honestly, it sounds like you need to keep looking for a hmua. I reached out to multiple, and not one of them were dodgy about the travel fees (or any other fees). And I have literally never seen anyone charge a booking fee. What is that even?! Most vendors charge a deposit, but that goes towards the cost of the service. I would reach out to them and clarify if that’s what the booking fee is. If not, I would definitely go elsewhere. So sorry you are having such a difficult time! I’m sure there are other artist out there though that will be more forthcoming with their fees

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Okay that's exactly what I thought about the booking fee!! I even clarified that it wasn't a normal deposit by saying that for my photographer, for example, I paid half at booking and half will be due a week before the wedding or something, and she responded that "it's a nonrefundable deposit that's separate from the cost of services" which is so freaking weird imo. I've reached out to several in the past two weeks and they're all equally cagey (or they don't respond at all) so it might be the market in NWA i'm not entirely sure.

View Quoted Comment That’s so crazy! But like you said, maybe it’s something specific to your area. For what it’s worth, we weren’t entirely sure where we were going to have our wedding when we first started planning, so I reached out to make up artists in Iowa, Illinois, and New Orleans, and none of them charged a booking fee or were cagey about disclosing their fees.
I would look for additional artists in the area to reach out to, and see if they all have this booking fee as well. I would make sure you don’t just Google search for artists either – check out Instagram, and Facebook wedding groups. Maybe somebody in a FB group could recommend someone they used.

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That's a good idea, I'll definitely look for those! I've also noticed that all but one of the artists for my area listed on this site aren't in business anymore lol so I wonder if that has something to do with it?

View Quoted Comment I hate to say it, but I didn’t find the vendor tabs on this site helpful at all. I had to independently search for vendors via google, Instagram and FB wedding groups

View Quoted Comment I have to say that I agree with Cece. The vendor tabs here on WeddingWire and The Knot didn't help me much. Facebook wedding groups were the most helpful for me, especially when my hair stylist backed out two weeks before my wedding! Through a Facebook group for local weddings, I was able to find and book a replacement within two days. Search for Facebook groups named something along the lines of, "Arkansas brides" or "Arkansas weddings", and put a post with your wedding date, specific services you're looking for, number of people needing services, and your budget. You'll likely get responses from available (and hopefully local) vendors within your budget, and then you can narrow it down from there! Good luck, I hope you find some good options soon!

If it's just the two of you, could you get hair and make-up done at your local salon? Many brides do this. Hair and make-up pros may charge even more for being taken out of an otherwise workday with more clients.

I was talking to a HMU person, but turned out to be a small company. The girl that came to my house was from over an hour away, and would be 2 hours from the venue. Overall communication was a little slow on the company's end. They also charged me a travel fee per each head.

Safe to say I didn't go with them. Will be doing my own makeup and for hair I found someone who works out of a salon as their primary job, and so weddings on the side. Her travel fees were $0.30/mile, the first 20 miles free. I think my total travel fee is like $37 round trip. Unless you want something very elaborate any hair stylist should be able to do it, just keep looking.

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That's a definite possibility! I liked the idea of being able to get ready with all my people around, but it could just be a fun mother/daughter thing. I'll look into that, thank you!

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I think that's what this is, I would rather just talk directly with an artist than with whoever's the customer service person, because I feel like that's a good way to get the wrong information and not be on the same page as the person actually doing my hair and makeup.

Are there no local hair and makeup artists? I would look for someone that is close to your venue rather than someone you are going to have to worry about paying a travel fee to.

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There aren't many coming up when I look it up on facebook/instagram, let alone try googling. even the "local" artists have travel fees. One lady is based in the same town as my venue according to her website and she charges $55 in travel fees, for example. She was recommended by the coordinator at the venue.

I wanted to second the idea of looking at a local hair salon. At least then you know you won’t be getting charged travel fees or booking fees or any other random fees! Also, a lot of hair salons have make up artists or hairstylists who also do make up. I actually just found out recently my regular stylist is an insanely awesome make up artist, and the reason she doesn’t do hair on weekends is because she is usually doing make up for weddings! When you are inquiring about hair, I would ask if they have anyone there that does make up. And if not, maybe they could recommend someone.

I went through my hair salon. They have a couple make up artists as well as multiple stylists. They had a sheet that laid out exactly how many of each service i'd need, pricing for each, time frames, locations, then I sent that back in and they calculated it for me. If I wanted to proceed, I signed the quote and they sent an official contract. I would see if they can put together a quote like that for you. And definitely look into full beauty salons who could potentially do hair and makeup with the same contract. I only had to pay 1 travel fee bc they were able to come together.