Right between ouch and boiiiiiing

Yesterday my mom and I went to visit a local florist shop. It is a wholesale place and we've heard a lot of good things, both about her flowers and about her prices. I called early in summer (June, I think) to make an appointment to sit down and talk about different ideas for flowers - I was concerned about what would be available, and not cost a fortune, in the dead of winter. When I called, some snarky little girl said "Um, people don't, like, come in until, like, 4 months before their wedding so why don't you, like, call back then."

Customer service is a HUGE thing for me - if I don't like a person, I don't want to give them my business. So this little interaction would have been enough for me to say "No way, Jose" and look elsewhere, but we had heard so many people say nice things, that I gave it the old college try - one more chance.

This time someone who sounded a little older answered the phone and was very nice. She did explain that there really was no hurry to book right away, she would be available in February and besides that, it was true that the owner didn't like to make appointments until it was closer. I also mentioned how I didn't want to have to be shipping flowers from New Zealand but she said there are plenty of things available in Feb and not to worry. So I figured, if there is no hurry, I guess we can just wait.

Finally we called and got an appointment. I brought pictures of my dress, my bridesmaid dresses, swatches of their fabric and knew both my ceremony and reception site - all the info I was told was needed.

We were sent to sit at a table - there were buckets of flowers all around us, we were meeting pretty much in her warehouse - nothing fancy here. She came over to the table (no introduction) and just sat down and said "So you're Meagan" and launched into the questions.

While we were getting ideas about the flowers, she was very helpful and even put a little mini arrangement together, one of each flower, so we could see what they looked like together. I only want bouquets, corsages and boutonnieres...no flowers for centerpieces, no huge arrangements. White and pale pinks for me, white for the girls.

At the end, she brought back the flowers for me, said "Ok, if you do decide to go with us, send $50 check to this address and we'll have a meeting in February" and walked away. No "Thank you for coming down", no "nice to meet you" didn't walk us to the door, just turned and walked away from us. I couldn't believe it. And the estimate....stings a little. People we have met with in regards to the wedding have been so polite and gracious, you know, acting like they WANT our business, I guess I was just a little put off by her lack of manners.

So, for my bouquet, 6 bridesmaid bouquets, Kevin's boutonniere, 6 groomsmen boutonnieres, 4 boutonnieres (our dads, my grandpa and my godfather) and 11 corsages (our moms, my granmothers {2}, my great-aunt, our godmothers, Kevin's aunt, and 3 readers), plus, at my mother's insistence, 2 altar arrangements and 1 blessed mother bouquet, the grand total was $941.78 + tax..... ooh, that smarts.

When I told Kevin, I heard the sharp intake of breath. And I agree...that was a LOT of money for flowers, not even including any centerpieces or the like. And I think I can do WAAAY better. I need to discuss specific # of flowers for bouquets so we can try and get a more reasonable estimate. And I am definitely not going back there. I want to try Wegmans, I may even be able to get a discount because I work there. The store that usually does weddings is across town, but I think we can work it out.

Perhaps I need to pick different flowers for the bridesmaid bouquets. I guess I'm not too picky about them, but I prefer a full rounded, but uniform kind of look. As the example, she put hydrangea and roses with a mini calla (which I could have or not, either way doesn't make a difference to me). I also wanted some stephanotis (my mom had this in her bouquet). I dunno....just seemed like a lot to me. We do have SO many people tho. Someone suggested that instead of giving corsages to the grandmas etc we could just give single flowers. We shall see.

Ooh, on the way home, we stopped at the place where we might do pictures after the wedding. It's VERY nice inside, my only concern is that it may be too dark. Something to discuss with the photographer. The upside to using this place is there is usually a charge, but our friends know that woman who does the bookings and she said we could have it for free. Yahoo!

Enjoy it!!