She Bartended Her Boyfriend’s Sister’s Wedding As A Last Minute Favor, But She Was Made To Feel Guilty When She Expected To Be Paid

nikkimeel - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only
nikkimeel - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only

When planning a wedding with a tight budget, sometimes you need friends and family to pitch in and help you with certain aspects.

While that’s understandable, you should try and compensate those people somehow at some point, whether that be through money, a gift, or a favor.

One woman recently agreed to bartend for her boyfriend’s sister’s wedding after her bartender canceled at the last minute. When she asked if she’d be getting paid for her work, she found herself in a whirlwind of drama.

She’s 23 and has been with her boyfriend for ten months. Recently, his twin sister got married, and she was invited to the wedding as his plus-one. However, due to some chaos that occurred on the wedding day, she was a bit more involved in the celebrations than she thought she’d be.

“First, her makeup artist canceled, then their grandfather got into a car accident, then the bartender canceled as well,” she explained.

“When the bartender canceled, my boyfriend offered me to do it. I am a bartender as my full-time job, and I did want a break from work since this was my only day off for weeks, but I agreed with a bawling bride in front of me.”

Her boyfriend told her that the bar setup would be small and simple, leading her to believe it would be a fairly easy night of bartending. However, that was quickly proven wrong when they got to the reception space, and she realized she’d have to handle an elaborate, open bar on her own in a tight dress and strappy heels.

“[It was] six straight hours of overly drunk people yelling at me,” she said.

“I’m not sure if they thought too much of an open bar since a lot of people got way too drunk and had to leave early or were acting crazy. After that, my boyfriend’s sister sent me a long text thanking me profusely, saying she [was] so happy I helped out.”

nikkimeel – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only

She figured her boyfriend’s sister would offer her some kind of compensation for all the work she did, but she didn’t get anything other than that text. She felt awkward bringing that up to her boyfriend’s sister, so she asked her boyfriend about compensation instead.

Her boyfriend became confused, telling her that her bartending was a favor, so compensation was unnecessary. Then, he went into a whole rant about how his parents paid for the wedding and could hardly afford it. Plus, his parents weren’t getting a refund for the no-show bartender, which financially strained them. 

Her boyfriend felt that it would be inappropriate of her to ask his strapped parents for money after she already agreed to bartend and told her she’d be rude to ask for money at all.

Her boyfriend made her feel very guilty for expecting some kind of compensation for her work, but after visiting with her parents recently, they told her that her boyfriend was being manipulative and that she should have been paid for six hours of hard work.

Should she feel bad for expecting payment from her boyfriend’s family, or does she deserve it?

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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