'AITA for wanting to quit working on my friend's wedding dress?' 'They're getting married in a week.' MINI UPDATE
"AITA for wanting to quit working on my friend's wedding dress and leave them with nothing?"
So, my friends (Both Bride and Groom) are getting married in a week. I know that brings out the most anxious and intense side of people so I’ve been trying to give a lot of grace in this situation and no longer really know how to handle it, and would love some advice.
I design clothes and around October I had, in passing, mentioned that I would be down to design my friend’s wedding dress. It wasn’t taken super seriously and was left in the dark until late December, early January when I was approached about it and went into conceptualization.
The dress they asked for was not just a dress, but a 2-piece ball gown consisting of a giant removable Disney princess skirt and bespoke personally fitted and themed jumpsuit, with very specific color and dye techniques.
I admit my mistake was accepting the lofty concept knowing the time constraint with a due date for the end of February (approx. 1 month and a week or so) but alas, wanting to do something special and nice for my friend, I accepted and got to work on it as a gift, completely free of charge other than a little assistance on material cost.
Every step of this has been a nightmare for me, many all-nighters, days called out of work, while commuting hours to and from my friends place for fittings and tests while zoning in on the final look. I had never done bridal clothing before and they knew this, as long as how I’ve faired on every part of this process.
This would be put on and extremely quick timeline as they had accepted a gig and were going to be out of town and whole two weeks before the destination wedding, leaving all of our fittings to be strictly set in a 3 week window.
Over the last two weeks, as I’ve begun to work on the final draft. Every step of the process has been criticized and nitpicked. For some reason, no matter what I’ve done, I’ve seemingly done it wrong.
Every time being told that I wasn’t listening to their requests and I was ignoring their demands, even though I’ve been following a set of sketches, renders, and instructions that have been agreed upon. And each time, I make an adjustment to fix the problem and move forward.
This has all culminated in today, after a straight 58 hours awake and working, and ONE day out from the day needed to hand the "dress’" over. I had sent a photo of the finished jumpsuit portion, and was met with another criticism and request to fix something that we had not (to my memory) agreed upon.
It was a short conversation, but it ended in the bride and groom saying that if I did not change the material of the finished shoulder band that they would forego the entire jumpsuit portion entirely.
It’s hard for me to really explain it all in detail, but the fix would be a tremendous amount of working couldn’t do in one final night, and the issue is very minimal when it’s the only “issue” with the entire garment.
Regardless, after hearing this, I feel as if my “friends” are extremely ungrateful for the favor I’ve been doing for them and I just want to bail on the dress and the wedding and leave it all with nothing. Am I the asshole for wanting to do that? I’m so conflicted frustrated and tired.
Later, OP provided a mini update:
So I finished it, some ppl were asking for pics so here’s a link. I didn’t fix the shoulder as I didn’t have enough time, idk if they’ll wear it but I’ll lyk if they do. Thanks everyone for the support and clarity!
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
jrm1102 said:
NTA - you may have bit off more than you can chew, but they are ungrateful, rude, demanding AHs.
CrankyWife said:
"I am sorry that you feel my skills are not up to your expectations. I did the best I could given the short timeline and your excessive alterations and changes. I will drop it off at your house so you can have someone whom you trust and respect make the final changes." NTA.
Honeybee3674 said:
NTA. But I would just give them what you have and tell them you're not changing anything else, rather than not giving them the dress at all, if only to preserve your standing with any mutuals. They sound terribly entitled, rude, and all around horrible.
Any_Performer_7886 said:
NTA - they sound really ungrateful and entitled. Drop it off and tell them you cant afford to take any more time off work as there has been so much extra work already.
Sea_Firefighter_4598 said:
NTA. Drop off what you have and tell them you're done.
StudentOfThisLife said:
Sell the dress. Recoup you costs. Lose the "friends." They are exhausting and ungrateful. I wouldn't waste any more energy on people like that. NTA.
Notsocheeky said:
YTA, you definitely should not have taken on this project if you have never sewn a wedding dress before. Just finish it and dont accept any alterations.