Bride-To-Be Asked To Leave A 10% Tip When Buying An Already Expensive Wedding Dress
Has tipping become more than we can afford?
Brooke Cagle / Unsplash There’s no shortage of critiques about how out-of-control tipping culture has become in the US. From automatic checkout kiosks at the grocery store to self-serve frozen yogurt stands, it seems that every small service performed outside of the home requires a tip.
Some complaints about tipping are unfounded, especially because certain workers make their wages off tips, yet there are some places where asking for a tip seems truly strange.
A bride-to-be was asked to give a tip when buying an already expensive wedding dress.
Ina Josipovic shared a post on TikTok in which she asked, “Can we talk about tipping culture and the weirdest place you’ve been asked to tip?”
She shared the story of buying her wedding dress, a sweet and meaningful ritual that most brides-to-be participate in. Josipovic found her dream dress, yet she also found herself feeling shocked when she went up to the counter to purchase it.
“I went shopping for my wedding dress a week and a half ago,” she said. “I ended up finding my dress at the first store that I went to, and I’m not joking, when I went to go pay, they flipped their little iPad around and it asked for a tip.”
She didn’t know how to react, saying, “When I tell you I like, full-on froze, I stood there and I think they saw, like, the blood leave my body. I did not expect to tip buying a wedding dress.”
Photo: Jonathon Borba / Unsplash
“The store was empty,” she explained. “It was me, my best friend, and then the three people that worked there, I think one was the owner, and then just two stylists. So, it was just empty, it was them three at the front and then I think my best friend was to the side, like, looking at more dresses, so I, like, kind of just stood there.”
The bride-to-be wasn’t sure what to do: Leave a tip for her expensive dress or not tip at all?
“Luckily, I speak a different language and my best friend bought a wedding dress at a different store sometime last year, so in a different language I looked at her and said, ‘Hey, did you tip when you bought your wedding dress?’”
The friend told her that she didn’t tip for her wedding dress, nor was she asked to tip by the shop attendants at the bridal store she went to.
“The dress is already expensive,” she said. “And then, like, a 10% [tip] on like a $1,500 is, like, another $200, and then if the dress is even more, you’re paying a couple hundred dollars, which I guess if you can afford, like, a $10,000 dress, maybe a tip isn’t that big of a problem, but most people really can’t.”
Josipovic detailed the math problems running through her mind as she tried to decide how much to tip for her wedding dress. She considered giving a custom tip, saying that a $50 tip ends up being around 1.5%, something she said was “almost embarrassing, but also if you guys think your stylist deserves a tip, why don’t you just give her commission instead of asking me to tip?”
Photo: Marius Muresan / Unsplash
“Maybe I’m wrong,” she went on, seeming to doubt herself. “Have any other brides ever tipped when they bought their wedding dress?”
While it’s standard in American society to tip service workers, tipping at a clothing store is a practice that seems to come from left field.
“Maybe I’m being kind of weird, but I just don’t feel like that’s a service,” Josipovic said. “I guess she brought dresses out to me, but I did that when I worked at stores, like, I just got commission off selling clothes to people, nobody was tipping me at a retail store.”
“Tipping is kinda weird lately,” she concluded, and she’s not wrong.
In a time when the American economy feels unstable and untenable, tipping seems to be filling a major gap between income and expenses, a gap that should be filled by giving living wages to workers. It’s clear that people are beyond frustrated by tipping culture, and that something has to change, sooner rather than later, to keep everyone afloat.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.