TLDR: they forgot about my order placed 5 months in advance and paid in full, resulting in using…read morethe wrong, cheap, and old flowers. they offered no apology and argued with me.
Full story:
I placed an order 5 months before a photoshoot where I wanted to hold a bouquet of flowers. I sent them a verbal description and a photo of what I wanted and they assured me they could do it. They quoted me for the bouquet consisting of pink garden roses, calla lilies, and lily of the valley and I paid in full as requested.
The day before pickup (that we had agreed on 5 months ago), I sent an email to confirm. They replied with "Please call me to see what you are referring to." After calling, they could not find the order and after being put on hold, they eventually found it.
Clearly they had completely forgot about the order. The order which they themselves said "I'll check availability (especially for lily of the valley, as it's seasonal) and provide you with an exact quote and timeline".
Upon arriving for pick up, they had replaced the lily of the valley, one of the most expensive bouquet flowers, for baby's breath, one of the cheapest. Not only that, the garden roses were standard grocery store roses. The roses were also dry like paper, which isn't surprising since they had thrown it together in less than a day even though they had 5 months notice.
When I asked for a 40% partial refund, I was negotiated down and patronized about how the price for the bouquet was way too low for what I had asked for because lily of the valley needs to be special ordered from France weeks in advance, etc etc. 1, it's not my fault that they under quoted, 2, I know that the flower needs to be special ordered; that's why they were given 5 months notice and I asked if the flowers would be available for that time.
They also argued with me that the roses they had used were actually garden roses. The photo speaks for itself --standard roses were opened up, fluffed, and squished in the center to mimic the round shape of a garden rose, and others were unmistakably standard roses (like the one I circled in my photo). One of their employees was agreeing with me and saying that the flowers used did not match the photo and description I sent. She was shortly dismissed from the counter.
They kept saying "we want you to be happy" - yet never acknowledged or apologized for forgetting the order or gave me as much of a partial refund as I was asking for.
They asked me if the inspo photo I provided was photoshopped. The flowers exist in real life and they simply did not use them. They said they could create it at the time, so why would they ask that other than to make excuses? They simply forgot about the order and didn't order the right flowers and tried to pass off a cheap bouquet of old dry standard roses and baby's breath as what I asked for. I could have made what they made from a grocery store and the flowers wouldn't have been paper dry.
Their tone when I was talking to them
was like I was bothering them and being ridiculous for asking for money back, saying that the cheap bouquet was worth more. They said "I used extra calla lilies and I put it all together." First, there were not extra calla lilies and even if there were, it would not make up for everything else. Second, you put it together?? Are you not a florist? A florist is supposed to 1, source flowers, 2, put the flowers together. Failed on one. Bragged about the other. Sorry for not being impressed.
Upon me insisting on the partial refund and arguing back with them, they offered to remake it and for them to deliver it the next day. Which would be day of the photoshoot which I had to leave in the morning for, which is why I scheduled pick up the day before. In the end, the delivery did not work for the timeline and I never got the flowers.