Sorry this is so long...
Tell me if I screwed up here.
When my (twin) sister got married 5 years ago, I was MOH. I was applying to grad schools, was broke, and overwhelmed with my job, studying for the GMAT, and business travel. She had no idea about any of it because she was only really interested in her wedding. I ended up spending ~$1800 on her wedding, a huge amount for me at the time (and still a lot now!). She was laid back about things like dresses and hair but I got killed with multiple bridal showers and her bachelorette. She pushed for a place for her bachelorette that required pre-paying for tickets. Then, as you would expect, most people never paid me back. There were also countless other stupid expenses that I ate to make her happy and be the best MOH I could. I didn't make a big deal out of it to her but her wedding left me with a lot of anger.
Today, we were chatting on email and I mentioned that I found a hair/makeup person for the wedding. I love her work, she seems very nice and reliable, has great reviews, etc. She'll do BM hair for $50, makeup for $40. Very reasonable- and less than what I paid at my sister's wedding. Great. I told her that I was going to send an email to the BMs asking if any of them were interested.
She flips. She starts telling me that it's sooo expensive and that there's no way anyone could pay that. Then she tells me that she paid for everyone's at her wedding. I correct her because, while she might have written him a big check, we paid for our own services. I remember that well because my mom pushed me to get it done when I didn't want to spend the money. She then asks me what I else I remember spending on her wedding and I tell her $1200 (she'll argue with me about a bunch of the expenses so I rounded the number down a lot).
My plan was to subsidize hair and makeup because I can't afford to treat. My thought was that I'd tell everyone that hair was $40, make up $30 and cover the difference. Plus, I'd handle all of the tips, travel charges, etc. (obviously). (Alternative suggestions for how to subsidize would be appreciated- could probably go up to $25/off per person.)
My sister's only expenses related to the wedding are: her dress and shoes and her daughter's outfit (she's a flower girl). FI's niece is also a FG and the moms agreed to find inexpensive matching dresses, aiming for under $25 each. The BMs were told short-ish black dresses and whatever footwear they want. She told all of the BMs that she's throwing a bachelorette but she no longer thinks she has time so her only other potential expenses are related to wedding and shower gifts- and those are, of course, optional. Basically, I'm trying to keep our wedding as inexpensive as possible for everyone involved.
She goes between phases of being super-excited about my wedding and sending endless ideas for things I should do (that, sadly, I usually can't afford or find the time for) - and complaining about how much effort my wedding will be because she's got a kid. This is her first wedding with a child and she's upset that I'm not providing on-site childcare. She also doesn't like the location because it's not close enough to where she lives (45 minutes away- about halfway between her and me, 15 minutes from both the airport and our parents). Basically, she's being pissy about all things wedding-related. I don't bring up the wedding very often and most of our conversations have been around her projects.
My feelings are hurt because she seems so upset over the options I'm giving her when I'm trying to make things so much better for her than she made them for me.
So I guess my questions are:
1. Should I have not told my sister how much I spent on her wedding?
2. Is the hair/makeup person really that expensive? I only found 1 cheaper person but she got awful reviews...
3. Is subsidizing hair/makeup instead of paying for it bad? Is there a better way of handling it? I don't care if they use it or not.
4. Am I doing something wrong that I'm missing here? I've worked very hard to be as un-bridezilla as possible and make things as inexpensive as possible for people as possible. She's in a better financial position than any of my other BMs so I'm afraid that there's something I've missed that will be tough on them too.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!