It's always nice when a friend offers to do us a favor.
Particularly when this favor could result in significant financial savings on our part.
That being said, favors can be rather dangerous.
As one favor can sometimes lead to one after the other, leading the person who made what seemed like a generous offer to be taken advantage of.
A friend of Redditor burner-account-78389 offered to help her out in advance of a very special occasion.
Unfortunately, the original poster (OP)'s friend couldn't quite fulfill their offer, leading the OP to need to seek an alternative solution.
While the OP managed to solve this problem, it came at a considerable expense, which she asked her friend to pay half of.
Wondering if she was in the wrong for doing so, the OP took to the subReddit "Am I The A**hole" (AITA), where she asked fellow Redditors:
"AITA for asking my friend to help pay for my wedding dress?"
The OP explained why they felt it was appropriate to go 50/50 on an unexpected expense with her friend:
"I got married a few years ago."
"My friend (let’s call her Jen) is a professional tailor."
"When we told her about the engagement, she generously offered that as a wedding present, she would do pro bono alterations for not only my wedding dress, but my wife’s as well."
"The wedding was scheduled for October 15."
"My then-fiancée and I separately went dress shopping in January."
"My fiancée’s dress was scheduled to arrive in June, and mine would come in late July."
"I checked with Jen to see if that time frame would work for her, she said yes."
"We started fittings in early August."
"She would would on the dress here and there, and then we’d meet back up for refittings and adjustments throughout August and September."
"Then it was October, and we were cutting things close (no pun intended)."
"On the 5th (10 days left before the wedding) Jen said that she wasn’t going to be able to finish the alterations before the wedding after all."
"She still had several steps left to do, and she was about to go out of town."
"She was super apologetic, recommended another tailor, and offered to pay for the remaining alterations."
"She also gave me a detailed explanation about what still needed to be done, so I could tell the tailor."
"Jen estimated that it would probably cost $100-200."
"For a rush job that ended up being a lot of finishing touches, the cost was $700."
"I have no idea if the second tailor majorly ripped me off, or if Jen just underestimated what was left to do, but I wasn’t about to start haggling right before my wedding."
"Jen had already offered to cover the expense, but since she hadn’t planned on $700, I offered to split the cost halfway with her instead."
"She was shocked at the price tag, but agreed to pay half."
"It was an extremely small backyard wedding, immediate family only, so Jen had always known she wasn’t attending."
"I did send her photos of my wife and I in our dresses, and made sure to thank her for all her hard work."
"There has never been a confrontation per se between Jen and myself, but we abruptly went from seeing each other fairly frequently to not seeing each other at all, or even really texting."
"She and her husband host get-togethers from time to time, and I stopped getting invites."
"I’ve had a couple people in my life suggest that I should have turned down her offer to pay for the remaining alterations to begin with, and once I found out the price I definitely shouldn’t have followed up on her paying for any of it, let alone half."
"Jen knew from the beginning that she wasn’t invited to the wedding."
"It was in my parents’ small inner city backyard, and my wife and I agreed in the planning stage that we couldn’t make any exceptions to the 'immediate family only' rule or else the guest list would keep creeping upward."
"There were a couple of fittings that needed to be rescheduled, which I took 50% responsibility for, and they were always made up within a week of when we had originally planned the fitting."
"AITA?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You're The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
The Reddit community had fairly little sympathy with the OP, generally agreeing she was, indeed the a**hole for making Jen pay for half of her alterations.
Everyone agreed that considering the OP was ok for Jen to do the alterations on both her and her wife's dresses for free, taking time out of her work schedule to do so, it was wrong to make her pay for the work that needed to be finished, especially since Jen wasn't even invited to the wedding:
"YTA, glad that Jen is cutting off the sh*tty friends from her life."- TheDIYEd
"YTA."
"You have some serious audacity."
"Her labor was already an extensive gift for a wedding she wasn’t invited to, and it was your fault it wasn’t finished on time."
"There’s no '50% fault” you admit you had scheduling issues."
"To ask her to then pay $350 for your alterations after she already gifted a significant amount of time and labor?"
"No surprise she doesn’t want to be friends with someone as entitled as you."
"You should apologize and pay her back for the alterations."- areyukittenm3
"YTA."
"Holy sh*t."
"Not only did she do the work pro bono, you MADE HER PAY HALF?! YOU DIDNT EVEN PAY HER FOR HER WORK AND SHE WASNT EVEN INVITED."
"YTA YTA YTA."
"Sewing is a LOT of work oh my god."- hollowsbest
"YTA."
"For expecting someone to do two full specialty dress alterations for free, yet not even inviting them to the wedding."
"You really couldn't squeeze one extra person into your own parents' yard?"- dstarpro
"YTA."
"It sounds like you picked a dress that needed to be nearly taken apart and sewn back together to fit you— that is far above normal alterations."
"She basically had to make you a new dress, and all for a wedding she wasn’t invited to."- redroverose
"YTA."
"Your fiancée didn’t cancel fittings and got her dress."
"You cancelled fittings and didn’t get your dress."
"I get she had to rearrange things too, however she was doing it pro bono and as a favor."
"You work around her."
"Do you know how much time and money she likely had already sunk into that dress?"
"She would have been working on it around paid clients to make it work, so I can understand the odd flex on her part."
"You however deprioritized your own wedding dress when ‘things came up’."
"You absolutely are at fault here."
"If you choose a dress that requires a high level of adjustments, you factor that into your planning and understand the importance - even if it’s being done for free."
"I’m not factoring in her not being invited into the wedding but regardless of how intimate you were planning on it being not even inviting her along for a drink later in the evening or morning Bellinis is poor."
"No hen do, nothing?"
"No wonder she got herself out of town."- lizfour
"YTA."
"She fixed your wife’s dress for free and had already done a lot of work on your own dress."
"The amount of work that was needed on your dress sounds like you bought a dress that didn’t fit you at all!"
"Which means a LOT of hours and effort to alter it."
"She had already put in a ton of work and it didn’t get finished on time because there were many times when you weren’t available."
"She offered to pay for the remainder of the alterations from the goodness of her heart, which you shouldn’t have accepted because she had already done enough, and then you come back asking for more?"
"Unreal!"- Tangerine_74
Upon reading all the comments, the OP later returned with an update, acknowledging that she probably didn't handle things as well as she could have:
"Thank you for letting me know I’m TA."
"I know that’s going to sound sarcastic, but I’m autistic, which is probably part of the problem."
"There are clearly a lot of social expectations that I wasn’t aware of, but intention < impact, and regardless I took advantage of Jen’s offer."
"I’m going to send her the money back and apologize."
"Probably too late to repair this friendship, but that’s the least I can do."
Even though Jen did offer to pay for the remaining alterations, it wasn't her fault she couldn't finish making them for free.
The fact that she already did a fair amount of work on both dresses completely gratis makes the fact that she ended up paying for the remaining alterations all the worse.
Thankfully, the OP has come to realize this.
Jen's initial offer would demonstrate that she is a kind, and generous person, so hopefully after the OP extends a branch, all will be forgiven.
