Paying for pampering

What do you mean? Like before the ceremony? Or during a pre-wedding party?

Anything you're mandating or holding as your own celebration, you need to pay for. Bachelorette parties and bridal showers are thrown in your honor by other people *voluntarily,* so they'd pay for any expenses incurred for those.

View Quoted Comment For the ceremony

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If it's something you're including as part of the "getting ready" itinerary the day of your wedding, I'd definitely say it'd be something you pay for.

Do you mean hair and makeup? If it's optional, then they can pay on their own. But if it's not optional, then you need to pay for it

View Quoted Comment I mean I don’t care if they get it done but I also care what the make up looks like but I don’t care if they get it done professionally or do it themselves but idk I just have mixed feelings about this

If I was requiring them to have their hair and makeup done, I would pay for it.

I told my bridesmaids they could choose to get their hair and makeup done or do it themselves.
I’m paying for my maid of honor because she’s my little sister and it’s one of her birthday gifts. Unfortunately I can’t afford to pay for everyone so I don’t think it’s fair to tell them they have to do it and pay for it.

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If you're requiring that they have makeup and you care what the makeup looks like, then you should pay for it. If having makeup is optional and you trust them to be able to do their own makeup well and to your liking, then no need to pay for it and they can opt in for professional makeup if they want.

I didn't pay anything for mine but i also didn't require or ask of them to do anything particular

I’ve thought about this too but I don’t have the money to pay for everyone. I’m still looking around for hair & makeup artists for my wedding next October but I already had 1 tell me that if I wanted her to travel to my venue, she required a minimum of 3 people getting services from her.


My plan is that I’ll find someone to do everything for me whether at the venue or not, bc my photographer has said you can “fake” the getting ready makeup/hair photos a lil bit.
I’ll let my bridesmaids & MOH know, but say they can come with & pay themselves if they want, otherwise, do it themselves. The only person I’d be worried about is my sister/MOH so if I pay for anyone it’d be only her (or maybe my mom would pay for her).
I’d suggest doing your research & finding info about who you’re looking at to do the pampering & see if they have policies about only traveling if 3 ppl+ are getting services done etc. this could also help narrow down who you actually have do this for you in general.

View Quoted Comment Another suggested I’ve thought about was maybe having everyone contribute and then me getting their shoes and a necklace as their gifts so that they wouldn’t have to do that . But I just don’t know :/

View Quoted Comment I’d say talk to them! My girls have been pretty reasonable about everything so far. I haven’t had the hair/makeup convo. with them yet but I did with bridesmaids dresses & they all know they’re paying for those themselves.


I simply asked, “what would you be willing to spend on a bridesmaid dress?” I just wanted to be straight up with them & let them know that I would like to choose a few options of dresses, making sure they’re in their budget & then we can collectively choose on which dress at the end of the day.
If you’re close with your girls & transparent, they shouldn’t get offended & you shouldn’t have to worry or stress about whether you should pay for more for the. If they know everything you’ve been doing/looking at/planning, they know weddings aren’t cheap, so they shouldn’t be expecting you to offer to pay for more.

View Quoted Comment Yeah I was planning on talking to everyone but my sister is getting married in may ( hopefully ) and she is spending her money on the hair and makeup for us so I just am having mixed emotions

View Quoted Comment Omg I totally get that. You have plenty of time before your wedding to figure it all out but I totally get preparing in advance - that’s what I started doing last year lol.


Don’t focus on what your sister is doing! I’ve done that toooo many times already with people my age getting engaged after me & married this year. Everyone’s at a different stage, have different finances & abilities to do more or less than what you can/want to do. Just because your sister is doing that doesn’t mean you have to (and I bet you already know this) but it’s true & it sucks bc I know how you feel.
I’d say just put a pin in it for now, come back to it later on, don’t stress over it! It’s okay if you pay for them & nice to do so, but it’s not required & don’t feel obligated like you have to do it!

For a wedding I am in, we are going half on hair and makeup. For my wedding since I am only having one bridesmaid and I plan on having a family member do my hair and makeup, since I know she won't charge me as much but I might ask if she would do the flower girls hair and maybe mom hair and make-up too! But I would cover the costs for those in my wedding.

View Quoted Comment So your paying for half of the pampering costs? That’s a good idea

I paid for it. They were willing to pay for everything— dress, hair, makeup, brunch, etc — but, I had budgeted to cover those things for them and I wanted to make the wedding morning as stress-free and fun for them as possible.



My bridesmaids had paid for quite a bit for my wedding events though. They each paid around $1500 for my bachelorette (my MOH paid around 3x that). They also bought matching jackets ($100) that I wanted them to get, but I made sure the price was okay. They also each bought new shoes (I didn’t require it. Just asked them to wear black heels). They all also booked hotel rooms for 3 nights at our resort, and one of my bridesmaids paid for all our wine tasting the day before the wedding.

So I cant afford to pay for all of my wedding party to get nails and hair done, but I just make everything optional that we can all go and get stuff done but no one has to have certain hair or makeup or nails.

I've been in a number of weddings where the bride set up an optional pampering and we paid for ourselves. Nails the day before, hair & makeup. I think it's absolutely fair to have them pay for pampering as long as you're making it an optional thing.