America’s tipping culture has been called into question time and again, but one incident might just take the cake. When a bride-to-be received an unexpected tip request, she felt her blood begin to drain as she not only felt shocked but also guilted. Was she right to be dismayed? You decide.
Ina Josipović, a 30-year-old American bride-to-be, is no stranger to the tipping culture in the United States, which is particularly ingrained in our dining industry, where gratuity is typically a standard expectation. However, Ina was hit with what she felt was an unusual tipping request while preparing for her wedding day, and it left her so shocked that she took to TikTok to express her feelings of dismay.
In the clip, which has since gone viral, Ina explained that she felt guilted into leaving a tip at the boutique where she bought her wedding dress. After giving a reluctant “I do” to the request for gratuity on the bridal gown purchase, Ina felt mortified, leading her to vent her frustrations on video, which opened up an opportunity for viewers to discuss and debate our tipping culture and how far it now reaches.
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“Can we talk about tipping culture and the weirdest place that you’ve ever been asked to tip?” Ina Josipović asked as her tip clip began. “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.”
Although the Salt Lake City resident didn’t disclose the name or location of the store where she was asked to leave the gratuity, many viewers were still angered by the story and the bride-to-be’s wedding woes because they could relate. In fact, many joined Ina in decrying the widespread “tipflation” that’s seemingly taken our country by storm, with more and more places requesting gratuity for every little “service.”
According to the New York Post, Ina didn’t explicitly reveal how much her dress cost. However, viewers were able to use deductive reasoning to realize that the price was approximately $3,500 based on the information provided by the bride. For those doing the math, that’s an additional $700 for the “standard” 20% tip. And for what? That seems to be the question the bride-to-be wanted to know.
A $700 “tip” sounds excessive to many, to say the least. Making matters worse, Ina explained that besides three employees and the owner, she and her best friend, who had accompanied her shopping, were the only two people in the store. So, let’s do some more math. If we take that $700 and split it evenly amongst the three employees, that’s over $233 apiece.
Even if all three employees devoted a full 8-hour shift to the bride-to-be, that’s nearly $30 an hour in addition to their hourly wage and commission. In short, a 20% tip on a wedding dress isn’t chump change. Instead, it could amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars, depending on the dress price, which could be more income than what is received by some skilled professions requiring extensive training and/or a degree. Thankfully, the bride-to-be didn’t let the boutique guilt her into 20%, even though she admitted that she received excellent service.
Instead, Ina decided on a custom tip of $50, which she estimated was just 1.5% of the cost of her dress. Even though she felt the percentage was “embarrassing,” she admitted that she was fuming over the boutique’s apparent expectation that she should leave any gratuity at all. “If you guys think your stylist deserves a tip, why don’t you just give her commission instead of asking me to tip?” Ina rhetorically asked, addressing the dress store and their tipping policy in the video.
It comes as no surprise that most reacted negatively, sharing the bride-to-be’s frustrations and lambasting our tipping culture, which many feel has gotten out of control. “I literally have no shame just pressing no tip,” one supportive viewer wrote, while another shared a similar sentiment, writing, “I am on the no-tip plan for most things nowadays other than waitstaff, salons, and misc helpful people. I’m ok saying no.”
The long list of places that have asked for a tip, according to viewers who sounded off in the comments, is mind-boggling and insane. Rather than giving those in the service industry added incentive to do a great job, it would seem customers are instead suffering “tipping fatigue” after being prompted for gratuity even at places where patrons self-serve. As evidenced by the comments, many feel it’s time to put an end to this customary American practice, believing that it’s an employer’s responsibility to provide a just wage instead. I don’t disagree. Do you?
