Hi Ladies,
I'm hoping someone my be able to give me some advice.
After I got married in October I arranged for my bouquet of cream roses to be freeze dried by a woman I found in the yellow pages.
I have today been to collect the bouquet and it hasn't been freeze dried, it's just been dried as standard and the woman has painted the flowers to what she believes is the original colour and they're no where near, they're a sort of off white grey colour (I was told they don't do the exact colour of my flowers in the spray paint range she uses). She's also had them framed in a frame of her choice without even consulting with me what I wanted, as in a previous conversation she asked me what type of frame I would want so she could arrange samples for me to look at. She's also now stating that she would have never told me she would freeze dry them as she doesn't have the equipment to do this and can't see what my issue is as I knew what I was getting.
I'm just wondering if anyone knows where I stand, as she has ruined my wedding bouquet - (something I will never be able to get back) and also I know it is my word against her's, but I wanted them freeze drying and like I have told her, I phoned a number of companies before her and discounted them all as they could only dry the flowers and not freeze dry them. I specifically asked for freeze drying as I wanted the flowers to remain as natural as possible (this woman advertises as a flower preserver therefore I phoned to ask if she did freeze drying). Also she has gone ahead and framed them without my consent in a frame which looks cheap and the mount covers up most of the flowers anyway, it's too small to actually see the whole bouquet. She's also not been very good at contacting me and I've had to constantly chase her up, even though she told me it would only take a few weeks and it's actually been over 3 months in total.
I've not actually got them back yet as she told me she would try and correct the colour of the flowers, however they look so shrivelled and dead I don't want them on display and neither does my husband so my husband has since contacted her and just told her to give us the bouquet back as it is without the frame etc. I plan to put them in the attic just so I still have the original bouquet and my florist is going to make me up a replica to get freeze dried - however it's also the sentimental value that the replica won't be the flowers I walked down the aisle with!
I've paid this woman a deposit of £50 (I don't know yet if she will try and charge me any more as she has told me that there is a further £85 to pay before I went to look at them) and I'm going to have to pay my florist a further £50 for another bouquet and someone else to then freeze and frame them - which to be honest it's not about the money although I'm not happy at paying out money I shouldn't have too. I just wondered if there is a regulator of people who preserve flowers as I don't want this woman to do this to anyone else, even her ability to dry flowers the standard way is questionable as my flowers just look dead! I've looked on google, but it seems there is nothing about flower preservation other than names of companies who do it.
I do plan to write a review on all the websites she advertises on, however this isn't going to bring my bouquet back!
I know in the grand scheme of things this is quite insignificant as the rest of the day was amazing and for this to be the only thing that went wrong I'm really lucky, but it's the fact I've asked for a specific service and I haven't received it.
Thanks in advance ladies - I hope someone may be able to point me in the right direction.
