More often than not, a wedding can wind up costing the bride and groom tens of thousands of dollars. And while there is wiggle room as far as costs are concerned, most of the time what you see is what you get.
But this bride disagrees. Not only was she unsatisfied after being given a substantial discount from a total stranger, she wanted him to complete a job worth well over $4000 completely for free.
It all began when an anonymous stranger contacted Redditor Leviathan41911 for a custom 3D print job.
A mutual friend had passed along the Redditor’s information to the bride-to-be. Leviathan41911 explained that he would be happy to accept the job, but warned that the total costs would be very expensive and gave an estimate of $3000.
Leviathan41911 quickly revised the cost to $2000, considering the large bulk nature of the order. But even with a discount of over 30%, the bride was not only unhappy but outraged by the mere suggestion.
“The moment you tell someone it’s for a wedding it’s 10x the price,” the bride complained.
She went on to say that “You should be able to do this for me for like $100, or even better, for free as a wedding gift .” The bride reasoned that since it’s the machine doing the printing, Leviathan41911 wasn’t making them by hand. And that the electricity to run the machine couldn’t be more than $1 a day.
Even after the bride’s rude retort, Leviathan41911 remained empathetic and offered to do a complete breakdown of the associated costs.
Leviathan41911 also told the bride that it would be cheaper for her to print one wheelbarrow, and have it replicated using plastic molds.
Leviathan41911 explained that the total cost of printing one wheelbarrow would be roughly $25, but still, the bride refused to listen to reason. “Can you please give me a deal ,” she pined. “I want our date and initials on them.”
Once again, Leviathan41911 reiterated that they had already given a substantial discount and that the total cost per wheelbarrow came out to roughly $8 per unit.
At this point in the conversation, the bride begins to accuse Leviathan41911 of leveraging the wedding in order to rip her off.
“It’s going to take roughly 50g of resin per print,” Leviathan41911 explained. “Using 1 machine, I can print 2 at a time, each print takes 10.5 hours. Resin costs me $35 per 1000g so 50g x 125 (2 per print) is 6250g of resin used x $35 per 1000g is $218.75 for materials.”
Leviathan41911 then continued by explaining how “I typically charge $2 per hour for printing time. 125 prints at 10.5 hours is 1312.5 printing hours x $2 is $2625.”
Leviathan41911 told the bride that there were prep costs and post-print work that would also have to be done.
“I also typically charge $15 per print for prep and post processing, placing supports, removal of supports, cleaning the prints, etc. $15 x 125 is $1875.” This means that the total cost, dollar for dollar, would have actually been $4718, equal to 54.68 days of non-stop printing.
Even after all of the facts were laid out before her, the bride refused to listen to reason. She said she wouldn’t pay for Leviathan41911 to simply sit on his hands while the machine did all the work.
Still, even after all this time, Leviathan41911 remained calm and empathetic.
He explained that while the machines were in use, that meant he’d be unable to take on any more jobs. Leviathan41911 also reiterated that the bride could get the work done cheaper and faster elsewhere, and even offered to give the pride some colored lithographs as a wedding gift.
The bride quipped that it was unfair of Leviathan41911 to charge her so much when they did similar work for their mutual friend at a fraction of the cost.
Growing more and more impatient, Leviathan41911 told the bride how their mutual friend is in fact his best friend.
It was at this point that the bride told Leviathan41911 how she was going to run and tell their mutual friend what a [expletive] he was being. Shortly after that, she told him to “[expletive] off.”
“Okay, the cost is $4718 , estimated production time is 60-90 days if you change your mind,” Leviathan41911 said.
Why is it that just because a person is getting married, they immediately think that the world owes them a debt of gratitude?
How would you have handled the situation if you were Leviathan41911?
