Paying for Makeup Artists' Hotel?

Have you already signed a contract? If it wasn't included in the contract, I would tell her that it isn't your obligation to pay for it and it's her fault for not including it in the cost originally.

I find it unusual that she would not factor in the time and cost when providing you a quote. Did you sign a contract or put anything in writing regarding her fees? I'll admit I will charge more to travel and raised my price more for a couple that was getting married at night 4 hours from me so I could find an inexpensive hotel, but that was all factored in to the cost before I even accepted a deposit. Review what you have in writing (hopefully you have it there) and go back to her with it.

No I haven't signed the contract, but I did pay for a trial of course and put down a small amount of money down just to hold the date (my regret here). When she sent the contract it wasn't filled out and I didn't feel comfortable without the artist actually filling out the numbers and costs, so we have been going back and forth with her to send us a completed contract since early October.

Yesterday she tells me she is finally working on it (after telling me for about 2-3 weeks now she would be working on it) that due to the timing she needs a hotel stay. Despite the initial contract she sent me stating nothing of the sort.

Her argument is that it's not a fee/excess charge and that I would be paying the same amount we discussed but just that she would need a hotel room. Which to me... is a fee and more than what was agreed upon.

She went on about her years in the industry. It's not impossible to pay for a room for her it just feels... wrong in that we weren't told in advance. My FH feels like we might end up spending more to do another trial and hire someone else but I'm not sure I want to put my makeup job in the hands of someone who has been so unprofessional and hasn't been straightforward. And I don't feel like it's right for us to reward her with a stay at a 4-5 star hotel in downtown DC.

What I have in writing (but not signed) does mention paying for parking and travel fees outside a certain distance from her location which we aren't outside of. I don't even mind paying a fee for the early start time or for parking, but a hotel stay seems ridiculous especially since she didn't mention it before in her contract or when we discussed the timing and details.

She's trying to say that we're going to be paying her the same money but just that she'd need a hotel room at our hotel or nearby. She's trying to act as if it's not an additional cost to us for us to pay for her hotel accommodations.

Her complaint is because she'd have to start so early she'd need to be in the area the night before and therefore we'd have to provide hotel accommodations to her. Essentially she doesn't want to wake up early to drive over to our hotel. It's her right to feel that way but she should have expressed that before is my issue so that I could have decided then if it was worth it or not.

So now my FH isn't sure if it's worth it to go elsewhere factoring the math of doing a trial and the cost of holding the date. I know we'll lose some money, but I just don't like feeling somehow scammed. And I wanted to know if others usually pay for the stay of their makeup artist at a hotel. Is it expected, essentially!

I would not feel comfortable either. Unless she is deducting the cost of a room for the night from her fee, she is in the wrong. I completely get her not wanting to get up early, but that was a factor when you booked the date. I might try to approach her stating that you can book a room, but the cost of ($x) will be deducted from her fee. If she disagrees I would walk. I haven't had a situation like this before and as I said, the closest was when the additional fee of a room was factored into the price quoted before any money exchanged hands. It seems she is adding fees after the fact which in my mind would be reason enough to back out. You may not get your deposit back though.

Exactly. If she had stated this before I may have been okay with it or maybe not, but I don't like the last minute switch up. Nor do I feel comfortable using my information to book her accommodations (her suggestion), who knows what bills she would run up. I can't trust someone that wasn't straightforward from the start. I guess a new search begins for a makeup artist!

I'm sorry you're going through that. Good luck!

Thank you! And congratulations!!

Thank you very much.

I find this annoying. If you decide to stay with her I'd make sure she understands there is not to be room service fee's on the hotel bill.

I wouldn't pay for or book her a hotel room. This is an oversight on her part, and you shouldn't have to pay for it. I'd look for a new makeup artist.

I paid for a hotel room for my HMUA, but I offered to do so because I didn't feel comfortable having her get up early and driving 2 hours to the venue that morning. Otherwise, I would have had to pay her travel fee so the price difference ended up being about the same. I also like my HMUA and have used her on other occasions so it was a friendly offer and I even invited her to my welcome dinner.

Yeah that's a concern of mines which is why I've decided to just find someone else. If she couldn't be straightforward about this, it makes me doubt her integrity.

Yeah that's what I've decided to do. There's just too much of a lack of professionalism.

It's fantastic that you had that kind of relationship with your makeup artist! Especially since you can count on her to help you with other events as well. If I had the same kind of relationship with this MUA, I wouldn't mind doing the same for sure.

In my case I don't mind travel fees / parking fees as they were mentioned in the contract though our venue and the location she's at is within her range of service. The problem is none of her paperwork says anything about paying for a hotel because it's an early morning job, and she suddenly sprung it on me after almost or about a month of me waiting and asking constantly for her to send over a filled out contract. It just seems almost deceptive to me. And honestly it would take her at worse maybe 30 minutes to get to the venue from her location. So just leaves me with a bad feeling overall.

I agree that it wouldn't sit right with me how she mentioned this after you signed the contract. And she's only 30 minutes from the venue? That doesn't make sense she would need a hotel room. Even my HMUA wasn't insisting on a room and she was nearly 2 hours away and had to get there by 9 a.m. So, I get your bad feeling and would probably feel the same.