I have nothing but incredible things to say about Lyn and his team. He is truly an expert florist and he made our wedding dreams come true while also fitting into our budget. If you are in the market for a florist, please consider Fresh Affairs read more

I have been so upset about my experience with Lyn since my wedding in October that I have just tried to avoid thinking of it. But I still feel heartbroken and betrayed, so this review is going to be quite a journey. tl;dr at the bottom, otherwise, strap in. Our first meeting with Lyn was at Fresh Affairs which is a wonderful space, and is filled with props and so many beautiful flowers. We discussed the reception vision; a floral disco theme with a cluster of disco balls over the dance floor, and covering the rafters of our venue with hanging flowers in a rainbow array of colors, textures, and greenery. We wanted the ceremony space to be very minimalist (floor arch and rose petals aisle, all white/blush) and then immerse people in a disco dreamland. At the end of the meeting, he declared I'm "a weird one" (an adjective that has been used to describe me my entire life) so I thought he understood, and wanted to sign up for a funky and fun lil collaboration with me and my husband. We decided to DIY the centerpieces to save money and so Lyn could focus on the hanging installation. While planning some doubts arose; first when I told him we got the venue to let them in an extra two hours early so they'd have plenty of time, and he scoffed and said it wouldn't take long. When we signed the contract it was far under the budget we had set, yet when the amount of product needed to fill the space started to seem high, Lyn repeatedly waived off our offers to pay more. Then, our one and only consultation was a mess. Lyn started the meeting by forgetting about it. My husband and I sat on the Zoom link for 15 minutes before sending an email. We got an apologetic reply, and then started an hour late. Lyn seemed to have just finished eating dinner and was relaxing at home, drinking a glass of wine for the duration of the call. He had a lot of small details wrong (numbers of people, etc.), but also made a suggestion I loved (adding pastel flowers to my bouquet) and overall was friendly. When I voiced my fears about the cost and time factors, he told me "honey, if you want something you've never seen before, you're going to have to trust". He was absolutely right, so despite the lack of response to my follow-up email of reference photos/thoughts, I waited excitedly to see what he came up with. When I first left the bridal suite for photos, there were no rose petals to be found in the aisle, and the floor arch was a near-perfect replica of the inspo photo I sent (a truly lovely act of plagiarism, and I cherish those photos). In response to my sinking expression and inability to recognize my bouquet when I walked past it (the utter lack of color and personality led me to see it in its vase and think it was decor) the coordinator told me the florists had left, but she would call them to come back and fix the aisle. When I walked into the reception space for the first time, my heart dropped into my stomach. Instead of hanging in a cluster over the dance floor, they had scattered the disco balls across the space on flimsy wire, low enough that people could touch them. In the center of the dance floor was an aggressively pink and dense floral arrangement. He plagiarized his own work here, and the main hanging element was strings of orchid flowers (even though we talked about amaranth several times) I have seen recycled in photos of his prior work at least twice. They ended up raining down on my guests the entire night and made the place look like a Barbie luau. When I've talked about my disappointment with friends and family since my wedding they all point out that they arrangement was very fun if you didn't know what the plan was. And maybe the flowers are beautiful. However, I can't see it because all I see when I look at them in my wedding photos is disappointing, unoriginal, and a half-assed attempt to deliver on the promises he made. Regarding our email exchange after the wedding, I don't understand how a person can do their job so poorly and then have the audacity to say they are "truly sorry this happened to you guys" (as if consoling us about something that was out of his control), but Lyn managed it. The good news for anyone reading this is that if Lyn decides to take your money and then proceed not to care about your wedding, he might give you a full refund too. You can choose whether or not you want to take him up on his offer of a private conversation afterwards to discuss how he can do better in the future. I certainly didn't feel compelled to give him any business advice if this is the type of person he is while conducting it. Tl;dr: my experience with Lyn left me with the impression that he seemed to think he was entitled to take my money and not to care one iota about any of the details of my wedding, besides a few cherry-picked details from our infrequent conversations, and then produce florals featuring a fair bit of plagiarism of both his own previous work and that of others, while calling it "custom". read more

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Drop dead Gorgeous Florals! Lyn Graves is a true artist in every sense of the word. We initially booked with Fresh Affairs for our wedding scheduled for May 2020. Due to Covid19 our wedding had to be postponed to May 2021. Lyn helped make the change of date very easy & less stressful. He is incredibly knowledgable, creative, motivated and was very excited to help our fairy tale wedding vision come to life. He not only created beautiful masterpieces with the florals, he also was very helpful in picking out linens and place settings for the head table and guest tables. Every floral piece he put together - bouquets, boutonnieres, alter set up, head table, cake flowers, centerpieces, floral pieces for our seating chart and chandeliers - was a work of art! We and our guests were in awe of the beauty, elegance, and romance he created. Everyone is still raving about it! We are forever grateful to Lyn for his hard work and dedication to making our fairy tale wedding dreams come true! read more

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I was referred to Lyn by a friend who used him and was happy with her experience. I am not one to write reviews at all, but in this case, I feel it is necessary to describe my experience in the most objective way possible in order to help other brides/planners who may benefit by finding someone else. During the 2 weeks prior to my wedding, Lyn was very difficult to deal with. Lyn was unhappy with my captain's table size and wanted a larger table to work with despite my wedding planner and I deciding that was not a good idea because of the space it would take up in my reception hall (it would've impeded the dance floor). Lynn responded with this email, which I have copy/pasted, verbatim: "Fine. We will proceed with making sure linens equal tables. I will warn you that the head table will not have the WOW we were looking for. You are only leaving me 4- 5 inches in the middle of the table and I can only sit one vase, candle or flower. This table is going to be so cramped just with guests much less any décor. Just want everyone to know I can create magic but I need space to do it." Very unprofessional, to say the least. I have to say that I was slightly underwhelmed by the floral aspects of the tablescapes. He did include a lot of candlelight, as I requested. On top of all this, I was charged $750 more than previously quoted and honestly I am still not sure what that money went towards other than a few more linens for my cake table and gifts/namecard table and about 15-20 rental frames. Lyn tried to charge me an extra $150 for the captains table even though I didn't increase the size. They refunded me that amount in the form of a check by mail. Payment is another issue. No one from Fresh Affairs informed me before they charged my credit card on file and they did this prior to me reviewing the final bill. My (amazing) wedding planner was surprised by this as well because usually other vendors (florists included) do not charge the credit card until the flowers leave the warehouse on the day of the event. Lastly, it's important to mention that my fiancé, my wedding planner and myself all reached out to Lyn with phone calls about one week prior to the wedding to try to sort this out and he never returned any of our calls. This, to me, is inexcusably unprofessional behavior. Positive notes: I loved my bridal and bridesmaids bouquets and the groomsman boutonnieres. I loved my wedding reception and luckily it was a very romantic space without decor, so it didn't need too much to make it look amazing. I'm sure Lyn can and has done amazing things in the past, but the drama that I had to deal with 2 weeks before my wedding is why I would recommend going somewhere else. read more

Fresh Affairs was the florist for my daughter 's wedding at Hudson Manor on 8/18/18. Everything was done via phone and I have to say the flowers were amazing!!! We could not have been happier with the bouquets, chapel and floral design as well as the reception flowers. The quality was top notch and everyone commented on how beautiful the flowers were. read more

Fresh Affairs - Florists Near Me - Raleigh, North Carolina

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Kudos to Lyn and his Fresh Affairs team for making our wedding beautiful with just a few weeks notice. My husband and I are not locals and called many florists in the Raleigh/Durham area, and Fresh Affairs was the only one who got back to us. We're very grateful they did- Lyn's personality and the friendliness and responsiveness of his team went above and beyond our expectations. They also stayed right on budget with their proposal and were very flexible with add-ons. It was a pleasure to work with Fresh Affairs and I appreciate them making the flower portion of the wedding planning effortless. read more

Fresh Affairs - Perfect combination of organic and color. - Florists Near Me - Raleigh, North Carolina

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Sweet and romantic with natural looking flowers - that's all I told Lyn about what I wanted for my wedding. What Lyn and the Fresh Affairs team created was better than anything I could ever dream of and literally took my breath away. All of the floral arrangements and décor were absolutely stunning. Several of my guests stated it was the most beautiful wedding they've ever attended. The venue owner said she stared in awe multiple times throughout our wedding weekend. Thanks so much Lyn, Michael and team! read more

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All I can say about Fresh Affairs is WOW AMAZING WOW!! My wedding was absolutely gorgeous and perfection in every way possible because of Lyn Graves at Fresh Affairs he created the wedding of my dreams and was amazing to work with every step of the way. He made my wedding beautiful and was better than any wedding I've seen David Tutera do on TV. I am truly blessed that Lyn took such great care and effort to create a beautiful day for me he did everything from the flowers which were perfection to the decorations of the ceremony and reception to the linens and plate selections. Simply amazing I can't say enough about how great his company is and how wonderful of a person Lyn is to go to such lengths to create a perfect wedding. I am blown away by what he created. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a special part of our wedding and working so hard. read more

I LOVE Lyn Graves and the Fresh Affairs staff. My wedding flowers were pheonominal! He made my dream wedding come true!

Fresh Affairs did all of the flowers for my recent wedding and I really can't say enough about them. Communication was excellent, the staff is friendly and helpful, and their eye for floral design is incredible. I gave them a few pictures from Pinterest, told them which colors I wanted, and left it all in their hands. The end result was stunning--my bouquet was so beautiful and the ceremony and reception were decorated elegantly. Everyone complimented us on the flowers and I owe it all to Fresh Affairs. It's like they read my mind! read more

My husband and I went to Fresh Affairs last summer in order to secure a florist for our wedding in November 2015. We went in and met with Lyn Graves with not a lot of time remaining in our planning process (we procrastinated a bit on the flowers!) and he assured us that he would find something that met our needs financially that we would love. He made some excellent recommendations and said he would send a proposal via email. The first proposal was definitely over our budget, but a few changes fixed that right up. We had a few communication issues, but in the end, the proposal was nailed down in plenty of time to prepare for the wedding. Closer to the wedding, my baker spoke with Lyn and set up for them to bring a few flowers to put on the top of our wedding cake as well. When the flowers arrived on our special day, they were BEAUTIFUL. Everything- the bouquets, the corsages, the boutineers...and the table centerpieces (candles, mirrors, and flowers) were beautiful too! SO GOOD. I will say that we were hoping for a deep orange array of flowers, but they were more peachy/pink. I couldn't have been happier though with the product and the set-up/tear-down from this florist. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! read more

We recently had a consultation with Lyn to discuss our wedding plans. Lyn was very unprofessional from the moment we walked in and condescending throughout our consultation. He seemed shocked that we both had normal parents with no step-parents to include in the wedding party. He made a random comment to my fiance that he thought she would be into "something weird like wearing a red dress," which related to nothing as all of our plans are very simple and pretty ordinary. He also decided without asking that I would be wearing a black suit and was totally thrown off that I want a blue tux. These are only the few things that really stood out to us out of an awful experience. We were never shown any examples of the work they can do, outside of the pictures on the walls. The estimate that he said he would send to us with a list of the services and pricing information has still not been sent to us after more than a week. Out of respect for yourself, find another florist. There are many more florists in Raleigh that can do and equal or better job with the flowers and provide you the service you would expect when planning a wedding. read more