To expect a 'thank you' or some recognition..

[roseroyce]

I have a business as a venue stylist and this mainly involves weddings. My sister recently got married at a venue I do fairly regularly, so of course, she asked and, I expected to dress her wedding venue for her (I would have hated any other venue stylist to have done it - it would never have been right as I am a perfectionist at that venue).

She wasn't the easiest of 'clients' albeit it being a small wedding - only 40 guests during the day. If she had been a paying client, the bill rose to over £600. I would normally never have given her a wedding present of £600 and to be fair they didn't expect it to be a wedding present. So it was easy for me to heavily discount the 'bill' and they paid me £350. I had nearly £100 of out of pocket costs, so the 'wedding present' was between £250 and £300.

On the day, I was there dressing the venue at 9.30, got home about 12.30 and she got married at 2.00 - so the day was tight for me to get ready and go back as a guest.

This is where the AIBU comes in - during the speeches my new BIL thanked a friend for coming some distance -100 miles or so (and also only gave a gift of a bag of flower bulbs!) and some relatives who we see fairly regularly having come about 30 miles - so no hassle to them! I, however, didn't get a single mention or thank you.

I didn't say anything on the day because I didn't want to upset anyone, despite being upset myself. I did get a verbal thank you from my sister on the day.

Since they have come back from honeymoon, I have said to my sister that it would have nice to have had a thank you. She said she did, referring to the verbal thank you. I clarified this by saying "it would have been nice to have been mentioned in the actual speech", to which she said that if I had been thanked, then BIL would have had to thank everyone individually for coming. I said I didn't expect to be individually thanked for turning up as a guest, but for all the extra work I had done and been involved in to make the wedding day a success. I told her I was very hurt and disappointed. Then the penny dropped and she apologised, but the hurt had already been done.

It would have helped my business to have had a thank you and recommendation; there has been nothing from either of them on my business Facebook page despite me posting pictures and reference to being a guest at a recent wedding, so no LIKES, no comment, no sharing. I have not had any written thank you for either the 'cash' gift or doing the work - four weeks after the wedding now.

I don't really expect anything now, as to them the whole incident has been forgotten and time has moved on. However, am I being unreasonable to still be feeling hurt and disappointed? It was a huge thing for me to confront my sister about my feelings as I never like conflict and don't like asking for things. Is there anything I can do now or just forget it, despite the feelings of resentment?

I'm assuming that the £100 out of pocket costs is after the £350 the sister paid. So it cost her £450 for items to decorate with, the sister gave her £350, so the OP was still £100 down. So that £100 plus the £150 she would have been paid for her time/skill was also a gift. So that's a gift of £100 worth of goods and £150 of time, equally a gift of £250. So a really nice gift from the perspective of the OP.

However, I wouldn't be surprised, seeing as how the sister and her DH asked for an invoice, that they would never, ever have spent anything close to £350 on dressing the venue. That by virtue of the OP's profession they felt obliged to ask for her services (in fact the OP specifically says she'd have been annoyed not to do it) even though it just wasn't something they cared about. So from their perspective they had to hand over good money for something they couldn't care less about and are expected to treat it as a wonderful gift.

Good point Mrs Hathaway. As a guest I'd certainly appreciate any décor no matter if it was "staged" or not if I had drunk an extra bottle of wine .

I took it to mean that the £350 was for the equipment or materials the OP used and the £100 was for the personal expenses eg petrol costs, parking charges etc.

Do you think, given that she only had 40 guests, she didn't really want her venue 'dressed' and felt she was doing you a favour rather than the other way round? Who's idea was it for you to do this? Did it come from them or you? My sil insisted on making favours for my very small wedding. I didn't really want favours but I agreed because it seemed important to her. I thanked her verbally but didn't gush about it in a speech because it really wasn't something I wanted or asked for. Could this be the case here?

I feel sure that what OP is saying is that her only present to her sister was the discount - total outlay was £100, and usually she'd make £500 profit but for her lucky sister she only made £250 profit.
The fact that OP hadn't come back to clarify this point despite some confusion on this thread tells me this is right. Far from doing her sister a favour she did herself one and made money out of her sister's wedding. And expected thanking to boot!!!