Let me start by saying, that as wonderful as everything about our wedding was, the florist left such a bad taste in my mouth, that I had to register to share and get it of my chest.
I went to meet with her - local flower shop owner three weeks before the wedding. I wasn't set on anything particular, but I did have bunch of pictures on Pinterest, to give her a sense of what I'm after aesthetically. She made quite bad impression from the start. She seemed very pompous and not bothered (and now I can see that she wasn't listening either), but I really liked her style and thought nothing of it, as I wasn't there to make a friend you know?
We had a chat, I told her I want fairly small arrangement with ranunculus maybe dahlias and lots of foliage. No roses, as I don't like them. I wasn't sure what colour scheme to go with, but she offered to send me some examples what would look good with my husband's tie and pocket square. She quoted me, wrote down all the details and I left thinking everything was good.
Well, she didn't send me anything. I went back week later to pay and sort out rest of the details, but the shop was closed. For three days. There's no information on the shop window or her FB page, no answer to phone calls, so at that point, as you can imagine I was pretty annoyed. She finally replied to my email querying her whereabouts saying that she's working at some other project and will be back on Thursday, two days before the wedding.
I went there on Thursday and all the fun started. First I was told off for leaving it so late. I mean, really!? She had my contact details and booked me in her diary, yet didn't feel she should follow up knowing she won't be in the shop most of the week? Then she started to rant how I'm basically robbing her bling and I shouldn't be getting wedding bouquet for this money. How I should't tell anyone how much she charged me, because people will expect the same. She went on to explain how it works with wholesale buying and loads of other crap. How she can't buy loads of different bunches of flowers, because she won't be able to sale it, etc.
I was speechless and fighting tears of frustration. I was there to pay her and she's giving me this crap? I told her I specifically asked for a small bouquet with loads of foliage and this is what she quoted me for. At that point I just wanted to leave, so I told her I really don't care what she's going to get, as long as it looks good and even agreed on a rose or two (but really open rose), as she was asking couple of times if I'm really against it.
On the day she delivered massive bouquet of mostly roses and basically no foliage at all! It was nice enough, but some of the flowers were old and floppy, the ribbon was pink, even though we agreed on ivory and the whole thing was completely different from what I showed her. I wanted something small and not very structured with mostly greenery. I even shared my Pinterest board with her, so she had visual aid! I got big round rose arrangement.
Considering she was so obsessed with money I honestly don't understand why she decided to make the arrangement so big and not use any foliage as a filler, as that's exactly what I've asked for.
Now I know I should have looked for another florist, but at the time I had our families arriving and other details to iron out, so I didn't want the hassle.Which now I would say, I should have done, even just because of the horrible customer service from day one.
Please forgive the ramble. I had to share. I guess what I'm trying to pass along is don't let your vendors treat you like crap. If they don't treat you well from the get go, take your money somewhere else.
