I Waited a Long Time for Bride to Do Her Makeup, but Was Literally Baffled by Her Hair When She Finally Appeared

In a story time post, a makeup artist and hair stylist details the worst experience she and her team had with an unprepared bride and her bridesmaids.

In the process of booking her last bride for 2023, Furat Sabti ignored one red flag, only to end up dealing with one challenge after another on the bride’s big day.

Makeup artist and hair stylist Furat Sabti received a call from a woman one evening at 8pm, wanting to book her services. However, it took some effort to determine what services she required exactly.

“I had to fish out what kind of service it was, and then she finally said bridal,” Sabti narrated.

Further prodding revealed that the wedding was only ten days away. Despite seeing the initial red flag, Sabti decided to take on the job.

The second red flag soon followed. “She tells me, ‘Okay, I’m going to talk to my bridesmaids, you call me tomorrow at 12pm so I can give you my final decision.’ I was like, ‘It doesn’t work like that, sweetie, I’m sorry. If you want to book me; you contact me and book me,” she explained.

The following day, the woman called back to book Sabti and her team’s services for the big day, which was only ten days away.

With two makeup artists and a dedicated hair stylist on her team, Sabti did her due diligence in asking the type of questions to best prepare and distribute the hands she had on deck.

When she learned that the woman is African American, Sabti gave her specific instructions regarding her hair.

“I know women of color, they are particular about their hair and texture, so I told her, ‘Make sure that your hair is nice and smoothed out to the way you want it to be before I come in to just style it,’” Sabti said.

The day before the wedding, Sabti gets a message from the bride-to-be at 11pm instructing her not to forget the eye whitener.

“Again, I just felt like she was so entitled. Like, if you need eye whitener for yourself, get it for yourself. Don’t expect your makeup artist to have it,” she clarified.

The next morning, Sabti and her team arrived at the hotel at 7am as agreed. Sabti works a time cushion into her bookings so that any unforeseen situations can be handled without running out of time. But this day was going to test that cushion’s robustness.

Once inside the hotel, Sabti and her team are led up to a conference room with a connected restroom, void of furniture except for a long table in the middle and a couch.

It takes the team about fifteen minutes to set up their menagerie of equipment, which includes chairs, ring lights, makeup kits, suitcases, and more, only for them to hit their first major snag.

Being “ready to go,” they look around the room, pondering the bride’s whereabouts, but seeing nobody at all, as Sabti elaborated:

“We were waiting for quite some time, to the point I even had a snack. I ate a banana, and my makeup girl; she had a cookie.”

When one of the bridesmaids finally enters the room, Sabti asks where the bride is, seeing that she wants to start doing her makeup. The bridesmaid introduces the second snag, and says the bride is “around” and “in the hotel,” so Sabti gets the drift that she will have to wait until the bride turns up.

More time passes before the bride finally steps into the conference room so Sabti and her team can get to work.

“I immediately stared at the bride’s hair. The bride didn’t have much hair, and she had a tight braid along her head,” Sabti explained, pointing along the hairline going over the forehead from ear to ear as the third snag of the day became evident.

The bride explained that the braids would be undone and that there were hair extensions that Sabti would have to sew into her head.

While Sabti can’t sew hair extensions, the bride assumed it was a part of the service. “What would make you think that I do?” Sabti said. “First of all, if your extensions need to be sewn into your head, that is something that is done prior to the day. And another thing, we did not talk about it. It was not a conversation, and even if I did know how to sew, it would be an extra charge right there.”

The fact that the bride thought Subti could sew the extensions on the day, left Sabti “baffled.” But more surprises were in store.

The bride’s mother arrives and puts an end to the sewing dilemma by taking over, but that still did not help them timewise.

“I’m just sitting and waiting, for like an hour and a half doing nothing, just sitting and waiting,” Sabti says, further explaining that she got up at 5am to ensure her readiness to start working at 7am.

“You make us wait a while alone in this conference room, and now I have to wait even longer for your hair extensions to be sewed into your head,” she added.

“It is so inconsiderate for you to make your makeup artist wait for something you could have easily accomplished and done the night before,” Sabti explained.

With Sabti still waiting, the rest of her team is busy with the eight bridesmaids, and matters are not going much better on their side as they hit yet another snag.

The bride’s request that all the bridesmaids have gold eyes and rosy lips, got sidetracked when the bridesmaids spoke to Sabti’s team about different options. This didn’t sit well with the bride, as Sabti said:

“The bride would get mad and raise her voice a little bit. I don’t know at who directly, if it’s the makeup artists or her bridesmaids. But she will be sitting there, and would be like, ‘We are sticking to what we discussed. Pictures were sent for a reason.’”

The bridesmaids were also not prepared, because every time Sabti’s hairgirl asked who was next, they offered excuses.

“None of them were actually doing the things they need to do. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, I need to get my hair extensions out of my car,’ go, go get them!” Sabti exclaimed.

By 9am, the bride’s hair extensions are in, and she sits down so Sabti can first do her makeup and then hair styling. Doing the bride’s makeup goes without a hitch, but the same couldn’t be said for the hair styling.

The extensions got sewn into her head directly behind the braid running along her hairline. Nothing moves, making it challenging for Sabti to achieve the look the bride wants. But then, a different challenge presents itself.

People, all dressed up, start entering the conference room. As it gets more busy and crowded, the bride reveals that the room is supposed to be their ceremony room. With people waiting to decorate the conference room for the occasion, and wedding guests piling in, time was not on their side.

After much fanfare, the bride comes up with a plan to move Sabti and her team to another area where they can continue without holding anyone up.

However, moving to another room is not as simplistic as it sounds, given the amount of equipment Sabti and her team brought along, and makeup scattered around the room.

“There is no way that we can just pack everything up, leave this room, go to a different room, and unpack everything, and continue,” Sabti clarified.

With the bride not ready and unraveling, Sabti decides to make a plan. She asks her team to pack up, but only unpack what they still need.

“At this point, nothing has to be perfect, because we have already done what is asked of us. Now, they are being ridiculous,” she added.

Luckily, her team had little work left to do, but the bride had more drama to add to the situation. The bride wanted to be alone in a room with Sabti, and the rest of the team and bridesmaids who still required final touches, to go into another.

Sabti had no issue with this, but she wanted to know which exact rooms they would be in, so everyone would know where everyone was, but the bride would have none of it. She kept referencing “this room” and “that room,” which didn’t help matters that soon escalated to the bride going off about payment.

“You don’t need to worry about payment, none of you girls need to worry about payment. Everyone is getting paid. I’m not a bad person,” Sabti recalls the bride saying in a raised voice.

While Sabti never hinted in that direction, she tried to remember that it was the bride’s special day and just to move on even though they were being treated badly.

The drama continued when Sabti had finished her hair. While she achieved the look in the provided picture, the desired volume on her head could not be achieved due to the sewn-in extensions and limited hair to work with at the front.

The bride had a meltdown and told Sabti that she didn’t know how to do her job. Sabti’s hair girl came to the same conclusion as Sabti when she offered a second opinion, and eventually, the bride’s hair was finished in an adjusted way she liked.

Even though she told Sabti she was pleased with the result, the bride sang a different tune when one of her bridesmaids complimented her hair and makeup. Sabti recalled:

“Her one bridesmaid walks in and she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, you look so good. I love it. I love your makeup, I love your hair,’ and then the bride goes, ‘Thanks. She tried.’”

What would you do if you were in Sabti's shoes? If you want to read about more demanding brides, we've got you covered with 3 true stories about brides who demanded guests cut their hair for the special day.

The first story introduces us to a woman proud of her long, blonde hair, a testament to years of careful maintenance and dedication. She shared that she had had to learn how to properly care for her hair and had spent much of her money and time perfecting her golden tresses.

Her hair, almost identical in color to that of the bride's but vastly different in length and condition, became a point of contention. The bride, fearing that the comparison in their hair's appearance would detract from her own on the big day, requested her friend either cut her hair or dye it.

The suggestion to modify her hair was met with an impossible choice: risk the friendship by refusing or lose a part of herself. The bride refused for the guest to wear her hair in an updo and when the woman said she would need to think about cutting her hair, the bride said having to think about it was a sign that the woman did not care about her enough.

The second narrative shifts the focus to family ties, introducing a woman with long hair that cascaded down to her mid-thigh. She explained that she was 5'4" and that she had been growing her hair out since she was 14 after a traumatic hair experience.

One of the woman's close childhood friends had told her that her frizzy hair was a sign of bad hair health. Learning this, she cut her hair short, but felt plain after doing so. Later, she learned that frizzy hair was not a sign of bad hair health and resolved never to take hair advice from anyone else.

However, her sister, the bride, deemed her hair too long and visually displeasing for the wedding photos. The woman offered to style her hair in an updo, but received a refusal. The bride felt that any presence of the hair, whether down or styled up, would be unacceptable.

The familial conflict escalated as the guest was faced with the pressure not only from the bride but also from other family members who echoed the bride's sentiments under the guise of concern that she would not get a job because her hair looked bad and that she was too old for such long hair.

The bride expressed concern that the woman's appearance would ruin her photos, at which point the woman said she would avoid taking any. When the bride said she was bound to appear in photos, the woman said she would rather not attend her sister's wedding than cut her hair.

Our third story brings us to a woman who, after years of keeping a pixie cut, had finally embraced the journey of growing her hair out. She shared that she had always styled her hair in a pixie cut because her hair never grew out in a way that she thought looked good. However, in January 2022, she noticed her hair had begun growing beautifully, so she grew it out.

At the time of posting, the woman's hair had reached just past her shoulders and she had no intention of cutting it shorter. Her newfound hair length was met with an unexpected demand from a childhood friend, the bride, who insisted she revert to her former short hairstyle for the wedding.

The woman shared that although she loved having short hair, she had to cut it four times a year to ensure she didn't grow it into a mullet. She also had her own wedding the next year and wanted her hair to have grown even more by then. The woman added that there was a financial aspect. Although she could afford to pay for four haircuts a year, she was a mother to a then-three-month-old and wanted to spend the money on her child instead.

The request was not only impractical, given the guest's current satisfaction with her hair and her own upcoming wedding plans, but also dismissed her personal and financial priorities, which now included caring for a new baby. However, the bride was still not satisfied.

The bride told the woman that her family still thought that she resembled a male and her now appearing more feminine would steal the bride's spotlight. The woman then offered to wear a wig, but the bride refused this suggestion. If she was part of the wedding party, the woman admitted she might have cut her hair, but since she was a guest, she remained steadfast in her decision to keep her hair long.