Bride-to-be says she was asked to tip after buying her wedding dress

‘I did not expect to have to tip buying a wedding dress,’ woman says

A bride-to-be was asked to tip after buying her wedding dress at a store in Utah, and it’s sparked another debate about tipping culture in the United States.

In a viral TikTok video, 30-year-old Ina Josipović shared with viewers her wedding dress shopping experience. Last year, she and her friend went shopping for her wedding dress and luckily found the perfect dress at the first store they went to. However, after she had purchased the dress, she was unexpectedly asked for a tip.

“Can we talk about tipping culture and the weirdest place that you’ve ever been asked to tip?” Josipović began the video. “I went shopping for my wedding dress like a week and a half ago and I ended up finding my dress at the first store that I went to. I’m not joking, when I went to go pay, they flipped their little iPad around and it asked for a tip.”

In the clip, Josipović noted that she and her friend were the only ones shopping in the store - along with three employees, including the store owner. “When I tell you I full-on froze, I stood there and I think they saw the blood leave my body,” she recalled. “I did not expect to have to tip buying a wedding dress.”

When Josipović turned to her friend and asked if she had been asked to tip when she bought her wedding dress the previous year, her friend replied no. The bride-to-be began to panic as she mentally calculated the tip percentage, which would amount to hundreds of dollars because the dress was already expensive.

“A 10 per cent [tip] on a $10,000 to $15,000 dress is another $200,” she said in the video. “I guess if you can afford a $10,000 dress, maybe a tip isn’t that big of a problem. But most people really can’t.”

Ultimately, Josipović opted for a custom tip and gave $50, which she estimated was about 1.5 per cent of the total cost. Although she felt embarrassed for tipping a small ammount, she felt it was strange that the store was asking customers to tip in the first place. While she noted that the stylist was “great” during her shopping experience, she believed that the store should have a different system to compensate their workers.

“If you guys think your stylist deserves a tip, why don’t you just give her commission instead of asking me to tip?” Josipović asked, adding that American tipping culture has “gotten weird lately”.

Since it was posted last month, the bride-to-be’s video has gained more than 300,000 views on TikTok. Many viewers have since shared their vastly different tipping opinions in the comment section.

“I literally have no shame just pressing ‘no tip,’” one person wrote, while another added: “Tipping for a wedding dress is 100 per cent strange.”

“I am on the no-tip plan for most things nowadays other than wait staff, salons and misc helpful people,” someone else commented. “Tipping is out of control. I’m OK saying no.”

Others shared the strangest places where they’ve been asked for a tip, like one person who wrote: “I was asked to tip at the pharmacy. Pharmacy? What am I tipping for?”

Another person said they were asked to tip “at the frozen yogurt shop where the customer literally preps the whole thing”.