What a Destination Makeup Quote Should Itemise — and the One Number That Decides If It Is Real

Article

October 26, 2026

Two quotes arrive for the same wedding. One is €1,400, the other €4,200. Neither supplier is dishonest, and the difference is not quality — it is that the two documents are pricing different things, and only one of them says which.

This is the most reliable source of bad feeling in cross-border bookings. The client compares a number to a number, chooses the lower one, and then discovers in the third email that flights were “extra”, that the rate covered four hours rather than a day, and that a second artist for the mother and the bridesmaids is another line nobody mentioned.

What follows is the eight lines a quote should contain, the single number that decides whether the quote is real, and a plain statement of our own terms — including the one that makes us the wrong supplier for a large part of this market.

The Eight Lines

A quote does not need to be long. It needs to be complete enough that two quotes can be compared line by line. Eight lines do that.

Notice that none of these lines is about price level. They are about scope. Two suppliers can both be honest and still be incomparable, and the only fix is to make each of them write the same eight lines.

If you take one thing from this section: ask for the day count before you ask for the price. A price without a day count is not a price, it is a number.

The One Number

The number that decides everything else is not the total. It is the number of days on site. Almost every other line multiplies by it: accommodation is per night, per diems are per day, the team's time is per day, and the flight is amortised across however many days the team is there.

This is why two quotes can differ by a factor of three and both be arithmetically correct. One supplier is pricing one day on site with a return flight attached to it. The other is pricing five days, and the flight is spread across five. The first number looks smaller. It is not cheaper; it is a different quantity.

So when a quote arrives without a day count, the useful reply is not “why is this expensive”. It is: how many days on site does this cover, what happens on each of them, and what would the same scope cost over three days instead of five? The answer tells you what you are actually buying.

Our Own Terms, Stated Before You Ask

Our published terms for overseas work include a minimum of seven days on site, with flights, accommodation and travel insurance covered by the engaging party, and a booking lead time of thirty days. That single number — seven days — explains most of the difference between our quote and a local artist's, and it disqualifies us from a large part of the market. We would rather write that here than in the third email.

Why the minimum exists. A team that flies nine hours for a four-hour job has three options: charge the flight twice, hide the flight inside a day rate, or not take the job. The first is unfair, the second is the thing this article is complaining about, and we chose the third.

What the seven days actually buy. A trial on site before the event rather than a video call. More than one event — a mehendi, a haldi, a wedding and a reception; or a shoot block; or a conference with three days of sessions. Standby during the day rather than an artist who leaves after the ceremony. And the ability to correct a colour match after day one, when you have seen the makeup in the actual light of the actual room.

What it means if your event is one afternoon. Then we are the wrong supplier, and saying so costs us a booking but saves you a month. For a single-afternoon wedding the sensible structure is a local artist, booked early, with the five questions from our companion article asked in the first conversation. If your celebration runs across several days, or your production has a shooting block, the seven days is not overhead — it is the shape of the job.

Five Clauses Worth Having in Writing

Price is the part people negotiate. These five are the part people wish they had negotiated.

1. Call time and finish time, with a named person. Not “morning” — a time, a place, and the name of whoever is responsible for being there. On a wedding morning, an unnamed arrival time is a rumour.
2. A named team and a substitution clause. Who is coming, and if one of them cannot, who may replace her, with how much notice, and whether you have the right to refuse the replacement. Without the last part, the clause is decorative.
3. A delay and absence remedy. What happens at thirty minutes late, at sixty, at ninety. What happens if the artist is unwell on the day. A supplier who has thought about this will have an answer ready; one who has not will be offended by the question.
4. A cancellation and postponement schedule. Dates and percentages, not adjectives. It should also say what happens on a postponement — whether the deposit moves with the date, and whether the new date is subject to availability.
5. One point of contact and a response window. In the last two weeks, a reply within twelve hours is not a luxury; it is the difference between fixing a problem and discovering it.

None of these clauses is hostile. Each of them is cheaper to agree now than to argue about later, and the willingness to sign them is itself information about how the supplier works.

What We Will Not Put in a Quote

Three things, for symmetry.

“All-inclusive” without a day count. It is the phrase that hides the only number that matters. If a supplier uses it, ask for the eight lines instead.

A firm number before we know the brief. We will give a range and the assumptions behind it, and we will say which assumption moves the price most. A supplier who quotes instantly either has one product or has not read your email.

A visa guarantee. We can tell you who applies, what the timeline is, what documentation the team needs, and what happens to the deposit if a visa is refused. We cannot promise a visa, and neither can anyone else — a supplier who does is selling you a sentence, not a service.

The Point of Itemising

Itemising a quote is not bureaucracy. It is the only way for a client on another continent to compare two documents without flying anywhere, and it is the only way to find out — before the money moves — whether the two suppliers are even selling the same thing.

The best quote you will receive is not the cheapest one. It is the one that lets you see exactly what you are buying, including the parts that make it expensive.