disappointing bouquet

embob74

A trivial matter considering the times but I recently had a lovely weekend away with OH. We organised a meal for my mum's 60th and surprised her by turning up and had arranged other family to be there. A great weekend.
Apart from one thing....my mum's hubby asked us to get a bouquet for her and to have it at the restaurant before she got there. Mum only gives him some spending money each week :eek: as he has been in debt a few times and she would have questioned if he took money out of the joint account.
So we were in town anyway and went to a florist. Specified a bouquet, mum likes yellow, asked for some carnations which were yellow and tinged with orange edges and maybe some roses and said about £30 in value.
Picked up that afternoon and wish I'd never have bothered. It looked like it had been thrown together. I'm not artistic but even I could have done better. It was a young girl who served us so I'm thinking she did it but there was the main florist there.
We ended up buying some roses from a mini-mart and sticking them in to make it look special.
My question is....what should I have done? We had already paid and there is obviously a great deal of artistic licence and I was disappointed it didn't look special and "special" is hard to quantify isn't it?
Has anybody ever asked for a bouquet to be redone? Anytime I have left it to the florist to use their artistic flair I have always been more than impressed as have the recipients.
I'll never, ever return to that florist but I would like to know how I should have handled the situation.

Nicki

I think as you were happy never to use the florist again anyway, so could have burned your boats with impunity I would have said something. You don't have to be rude or aggressive, but you could have said: Look to be honest I'm quite disappointed with this. It is for a special occasion and it looks a bit thin/higgledly piggeldy/whatever your particular complaint was. Is there anything you can do to make it look a bit more special please. And seen what they offered. Particularly if there were other customers in the shop, I think the senior florist would probably have rearranged it there and then and added in a bit more greenery for you without any fuss. I have certainly bought flowers before from stalls i stations or by the road side, and had the seller pull them into an attractive looking arrangement in seconds for me. A very formal arrangement like a wedding bouquet takes a long time to do, but a more simple arrangement can be quite quick to do.

sassyblue

It is a bit difficult isn't it? but l would have said 'sorry could you rearrange them they don't have the wow factor they normally have'. If you're not happy it's upto you to say something otherwise you won't return and she's lost a customer - so neither of you 'wins'

gingin_2

Although I think it's a lovely thought, £30 round here doesn't get you much of a bouquet, you might have had a fuller bouquet if the budget had been higher.

I still would have complained if the flowers had been put together in a slapdash way.

msb5262

gingin wrote: »

£30 round here doesn't get you much of a bouquet.

£30 round here would get you a great bouquet (Lancashire - so not that far from the OP).
I think you should have said, "I'm not very impressed!" straight away and they would have sprung into action...

LEJC

i've been in this situation before .... only I was the receiver of the flowers and although it sounds ungrateful I was really disapointed by what I received....

I was in ther position that they were bought by my husband so he could see that what got delivered didnt really bear ant relation to what he had intened to be sent.

He phoned the florist and was told...the order had been substituted with different flowers and even a multitude of "plastic and wooden decorations"because "it was the weekend and they dont get a flower delivery until a monday"... at which point he offered to return the flowers so that "perhaps we could have a bouquet that would be more in keeping with what was ordered..."

A new and much prettier bouquet arrived on the monday...

The problem for you is I think that you should have said something when you picked the flowers up or perhaps if youve taken some photos you could return to the florist and have a chat about what you thought was missing from it....
They may offer you something in return theres no harm in trying .

daffodil

I was thinking of using a florist next time I wanted to send some flowers - but I can see that I will have to be careful even with them.
Iflorist is a terrible place to order flowers from too. and thats online.

msb5262

daffodil wrote: »

I was thinking of using a florist next time I wanted to send some flowers - but I can see that I will have to be careful even with them.

I always use local florists when I send flowers with excellent results. I use the internet to locate a florist close to where the recipient lives, then I ring up and have a chat with the florist and start by explaining what the occasion is and asking what flowers they've got in the shop. Then I specify colours/flower preferences and agree a price to include delivery. Maybe it's the personal touch of involving the florist in a discussion of what would be appropriate, but this always seems to work.

HTH

MsB

thehappybutterfly

Oh I remember the first time i ever used a florist for flowers about 15 years ago. I had a miniscule budget of £10 and went in and said to the lady I wanted to order a bouquet, told her the budget and she looked down her nose at me and said "oh, so you want a BUNCH then?". I just looked at her and walked out. It put me off florists for a long time after that.

At least when you go to the supermarket you can see what you're getting for your money.

silvercar

i've been in this situation before .... only I was the receiver of the flowers and although it sounds ungrateful I was really disapointed by what I received....

I've been in the same situation and phoned the florist to check they had sent the right order, given that I knew the giver was particularly generous. They confirmed it was the right order and I said the arrangement was very disappointing. I knew they would have been really upset to see the sad offering so I went to somewhere else and bought extra flowers to add to it, they still thought it was little for their money!

motherofstudents

I am really lucky to know a free lance florist. She does some lovely arrangements at a reasonable price. £30 would get a very nice one. However, that doesn't work if I want to send flowers further away. I sent a plant to Australia via Interflora and my friend over there said it was nice but I don't know if she was just being polite. She sent me one last year, it was meant to be cream roses but I actually received a hydrangea. Fortunately it was a very nice one but not at all what she had ordered.

I would have asked them to make it look a bit nicer.