When a client is unhappy...

Recently, this girl who lives in the USA (I live in another country) told me its her dream to get clothes made from me because she's always loved the dresses I make for my sister (mind you I don't do this professionally... I'm in advertising) So she asked me to make three dresses for her wedding which is in july (one of these dresses is for her MAIN wedding reception)... that too on a minuscule budget (I'm NOT getting paid for anything so doing it as a favor)... yesterday she was like can I see some pictures...and I told her they're not stitched yet so you wont get the vision... anyway she sees the pictures and I can see she's absolutely not happy! she thought that I'd get the reference picture she sent REPLICATED... the reference dress cost $2500 whereas her entire budget for 3 dresses was $1300 ... I actually genuinely believe I have made the prettiest dress I could have keeping her requirements in mind (champagne colored etc), she kept saying its not EXACTLY what she wanted...I'm upset & don't know what to do

I think you should take the entire project, send her the cloth, and tell her, you finish it. Cut your losses. You've already spent a lot of time and money on it, but cut your losses, in that, you're fixing to lose more time and money if you spend another minute and another dollar on this. One question is, why did you make free dresses for her sister? Look at her discontent as a plus, as a reason to get you out of this project, now, not a month from now when you would have put more into it. Then look at yourself. If someone else ask you to make a dress, would you do that? Why do you feel you have to do this. Now what about me? I make some family history albums. I worked for a couple of years, off and on, mostly on, making 4 or 5 such albums. After I finished, a woman asked me to make 4 more for her family, although I had put the project down and everybody had enough time to order an album. I didn't know what to do, either. I spent 2 years making about 6 more albums, that I had already made a year or 2 before. She paid me like $150 for 2 years of work. I got a five sentence thank you note. You talk about feeling stupid, me not her. Why did I do that? Why do you do that? I don't know either. We have screws lose.Maybe because we can't say no. Maybe because we're too nice. "We learn when we fall down, we die if we don't get back up, or if we don't learn from our mistakes." Learn from this. Learn it now. Send her the mate4rial in a box, or a letter, let me write the letter or the e-mail. "Dear Ms. Smith, if you think for one second...." No, don't let me write the letter. Take up for yourself, for a change. You make dresses great, you don't take very good care of yourself" worth a hoot. I once heard someone tell me those exact words. Inside, I got angry at him, but he was right. Years later, I took a hard shot which did long-time damage, and even a stupid person like me learned to start taking care of myself or I was going to die. So, while someone telling me, "You don't take very good care of yourself" didn't do the trick, because I thought I couldn't do that,when I took a long-time physical damage hit, it finally clicked inside of me, "I better start taking care of myself or I'm gonna die." I don't think you'll listen to these words for a second, but one day, you're going to take a hit, and maybe you'll be lucky enough to figure it out. Again, I had to learn the hard way to do that, by taking a 2x4 to the head, and saying to myself, "If you keep being nice, you might die the next time you get hit a by a 2x4. Learn from this. take up for yourself." From one such person to another, I would drop this project. I would take the blows. I would not attend the wedding, if it puts anything on you. I think you should consider it a victory if you dropped the project now. Making a dress seems like a subjective thing. You could think its great, she not. You're working yourself into the ground for nothing, and for a nobody. When will we ever learn?