Should these vendors be tipped?

No. Tipping should be abolished. Employers should instead pay a proper salary. In numbers it is the same: In the end, the customer pays for it.
But tipping is tantamount to social black mail.

The basic rule is if that a tip is incorporated into the cost presented, then no additional tip is necessary. Yes, it can feel weird to those accustomed to tipping. The reason for this practice is probably two-fold: either forcing a tip based upon the service provider’s salary and based upon the size of a group or due to the cost of a service covered being paid by someone else. The latter means that the receiver, (you in this case), walks away without having to pay a tip.

In all cases, this is rarely explained on the front end.

Generally speaking, I would not do business with somebody who insisted on adding a standard gratuity as a matter of procedure. I would negotiate it up front with a range of gratuity, lowest to highest, depending on the level of attention and service I got.

I so agree with @ragingloli and I’m glad I live somewhere where tipping isn’t the norm. I will tip if someone does a fabulous job but generally not at all and I agree with @josie, imposing a tip on me would make me very cross. My husband never pays the gratuity if it’s included in the final amount on a bill. Some places here are starting to do that. Please note, tipping isn’t part of our culture. Does the gratuity that’s included in the bill actually make it to the staff who are serving you? Or does it end up with the business owner?

You don’t have to tip, but I might tip the Limo driver if he is an employee and not the owner. Possibly a few other people if their service made my day that much easier. I’d have some extra $5’s, $10’s and $20’s in case.

More and more I am learning that tips are not always passed along to the people doing the service. Makes me sick.

Unless the person has done a really standout job, you really like them, whatever, I would not tip above gratuity. THe big thing here is that they clearly didn’t mention that gratuity was included. That’s terrible. Clearly they were looking to be double tipped. Shitty.

I would be tempted to seek out the vendors that did not add tip, and settle up with them so I could state:

All gratuities have been covered.
so that neither you nor you guests double tip.

People now have dress rehearsals at the hair salon? There’s a make-up girl there?

Where did she say dress rehearsal?

@JLeslie, she said she went for a ‘trial run’ at the hairdressers and that she tipped the makeup girl.

I think it’s quite common to have a trial run @gailcalled. I think it has been for a long time. I know I had to find a new hairdresser (on the day of my first wedding) to do my hair. He was quite put out because we hadn’t had weeks to prepare for the event. Apparently he saw his other clients a number of times before the big day!

So, if you have a trial run at the hairdresser’s/makeup artist’s, do they dishevel your hair and scrub your face before you leave?

Isn’t the groom seeing you before the wedding bad luck?

I’d rather get married in a retirement home. Heartfelt sentiment.
Reality TV is ruining the last decency in America.

Trial run at the hairdresser is not a dress rehearsal to me. Dress rehearsal is running through the ceremony so everyone knows their places and timing. A rehearsal dinner sometimes follows this, and sometimes there isn’t even a run through, but there is a rehearsal dinner. The dinner usually is a way to extend the festivities of the event, and sometimes seen as a courtesy to out of town friends and family, besides being a way to spend more time with them. It can be casual or formal, even if the wedding will be very formal.

Practicing make-up and hair are not necessarily coupled with a rehearsal. They can be, but I don’t assume they are. I would think most brides don’t coiffe their hair the same way for both. I don’t attend a lot of weddings, maybe they do.

I also think brides would be nervous to leave their practice hairdo for one day before the event, and also if they don’t like it they would not want to sport it at the rehearsal dinner.

I did my own hair and make-up.

@ibsturbo No, they left my hair and makeup. I had that day already planned out to spend with my maid of honor so the groom never actually seen me with my hair and makeup done. He had his bachelor party that day and I had a shopping/movie date with my friend. It worked out perfectly.

As @JLeslie stated, I wouldn’t call it a dress rehearsal but just a quick trial of how my hair and makeup would look on the big day. This way I got to try out both for an entire day to see how everything held up, and to make sure I liked how the girls styled me. I was too nervous to just leave fate in the hands of a salon I’d never been to before on the wedding day.

Just damn @ragingloli

You couldn’t be more aggressively incorrect.

You have it backwards:

Gratuity is not a response of pity to underpaid workers. In fact the opposite has come to be. The all mighty STATE has lowered the minimum wage for typically tipped contractors by declaring gratuity to be a wage.

Yes, gratuity is wage technically. Your typical server, bartender or hairstylist is an independent contractor. We work and are paid directly by our patrons. The restaurant, bar or salon we serve in is not our true employer. It is simply where we have found our clients. There are some high scale restaurants where the server PAYS for the opportunity to work in such a lucrative establishment.

But the heavy hand of Government does not stop oppressing there. The tax burden on our pay from pleased patrons is often exorbitant to the point where it absorbs all and more of our hourly wage. This tax rate is based on the amount of food and beverage we have sold to our beloved guests. As a result I have at times received a paycheck with a NEGATIVE figure on it. Even worse, if you are a pathetic cheapskate that does not believe in paying for the service you are provided serving your sad ass actually costs me in the form of taxes. Yes, I am taxed on the food and beverage your refused to pay me for attentively delivering.

You twits would never imagine going to a transmission shop and demanding that the new gearbox be installed and then refuse to pay the labor charge, Yet that is exactly what you are doing when you refuse to pay for service. That dinner before you did not magically appear. LIKE I HAVE SAID BEFORE, IF YOU ARE TOO LAME AND CHEAP TO PAY FOR SERVICE STAY HOME AND HAVE A DATE WITH YOUR MICROWAVE. SQUEEZE YOUR own DAMN LEMON INTO YOUR TAP WATER.

Gratuity is not oppression but a sometimes payment, sometimes expression of gratitude for work well done. Nearly anyone can be tipped appropriately. If you get the feeling one should be tipped they probably should be.

Now that I am in Napa California I have carefully selected a bottle of Extended Prestige Mumm Brut from my new backyard and a check for fifty dollars to be shipped to my long time Honda/Acura technician in Florida for understanding that my car matters to me and for not only doing a master’s expert work, but also for his professional manner and the countless details he performed not because they were on the ticket, but because of the relationship between one professional car lover and another.

This, @ragingloli, is the essence of the gratuity. Cash speaks but tasteful items and delivery (a gratuity should always be delivered in a discreet manner) matter as well.

It is a shame you obviously will never be on either side of this happy relationship.