Really upset about my wedding flowers!!! Any advice??

In my personal experience this is pretty common throughout the entire wedding industry. I would just be very thankful that the floral was the only thing that went wrong. Almost everything was wrong at my wedding, and yes I too hired top vendors and venue. You have every right to be upset! No other place for business gets away with pulling fast moves like this. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of vendors know that they can cut corners to get more money and once it’s the wedding day What are people going to do? It’s not like you can go back. It’s not like you can tell them that you don’t like it at that point and you want them to redo it. I think they also know it’ll cost you more to probably take them to court then it would to just call it a wash. You said your vendor is so nice… Then my suggestion would be to call and express all of this to the florist and see what their reaction is. I wonder how nice they will be at that point. If they are professional they will reimburse you for some of the things you did not receive, or credit you, or at least do something. I too have experienced this where I sent them photos and videos and very descriptive wording with everything and they still seemed to mess it all up so Believe me I get your frustration and you have every right to be upset. Greenery costs less so it makes sense that he charged you for what you thought was going to be flowers and instead said you know what I kind of like all of this extra money, and I’m only going to just put greenery and keep the money. I could also be totally wrong and he could’ve just made a mistake somehow… But you will only truly know the answer by simply giving a call and expressing your concerns or even writing an email. I personally think that you should write an email because that way you have everything written down and he can’t say that you said something you didn’t

I would contact him and let him know you are disappointed. We had a similar issue with our cake. It looked NOTHING like the picture I shared with them and they acknowledged it and gave me a refund. It never hurts to ask if you are really that disappointed. Good luck

I'm always the jerk on these threads.

First question, did you tell him a budget to work with? Or was it "make our flowers look exactly like this and we will pay whatever that costs"?

Because here's the thing about wedding florals: the huge, flower-filled arrangements you see in magazines and on Pinterest are EXPENSIVE. Most fancy bouquets alone cost $500+. $300 for a chandelier with mostly greenery with some orchids doesn't sound unreasonable at all to me, actually. If the picture you provided was a very elaborate orchid arrangement, it probably actually cost upwards of a grand.

If you gave the florist a budget and said "this is what we can afford," he had to pull off a look similar to what you wanted, within the price you could afford. The cost of flowers would shock you. I've been to weddings with $10k floral budgets, and it's what pretty much everyone pins on their wedding boards thinking they're going to get the same look with a flower budget of $4k.

Also, it's honestly never a good idea to tell someone "I want it to look exactly like this." At the end of the day, a florist is an artist, and he is an artist working with (once) living media. He can't honestly recreate exactly what someone else did, and possibly not even something he did for someone else, either. (Have you ever drawn something and then tried drawing it the exact same way again? Very few people can.) People telling any artist - whether it's the florist, the baker, the photographer - "I want exactly this" is just a good way to make sure you end up disappointed.

You can reach out to him and ask why it didn't meet your expectations. Be prepared for an answer you don't like, but if he's been a vendor for a long time, then he shouldn't take offense to your honesty.

I feel you 100%. I thought I communicated very clearly to my florist, sent photos and made it expressly clear that I had no budget and was willing to pay whatever it cost to have the flowers I wanted.


My bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets could not have been farther from what I communicated. To top it off, she was hours late delivering everything so I have zero pics of me or any of my bridesmaids with florals besides our walks up and down the aisle. Our group shots were completely sans flowers.
I just let it go, but it still annoys me sometimes when I think about it because I LOVE flowers and honestly would have been happy with any number of interpretations of the examples I sent over. But that’s not what I got.
I’d send the florist a polite but detailed email giving specific examples of everything that didn’t meet your expectations. Don’t mention a refund, just explain clearly why and how you were disappointed and see what the response is.

I know exactly how you feel and we have been married almost two years. Our florist messed up a ton of stuff. Not only did it look nothing like what I wanted, but our bouquets were literally falling apart. She used stupid plastic flower holders I hated and told her I didn't want to use, but she used them anyways. We had all real flowers and my husband's sister and his brother's wife glue my bouquet into the holder since it wasn't staying together. They didn't have time to do the same with the bridesmaids/groomswoman so one my bridesmaids had flowers falling out of her bouquet during the ceremony and the groomswoman's fell apart during photos. I reached out to our florist after and her response was blocking me. She refused to acknowledge any of her mistakes or offer any type of solution like a partial refund for her mistakes. Maybe your florist will be more understanding. I sure hope so and I'm so sorry this happened.

I would let it go. You had a beautiful wedding day that you have happy memories of. You likely won’t receive any sort of refund (no matter how much you may deserve it) and will just give yourself a headache and potentially even change your memories of the day. The more you focus on it the more you’ll hate the flowers when you look at pictures. Leave it be.

I would let it go. I know it really bothers you and you are sad and disappointed, but there is absolutely nothing that can be done now. Would a refund of any amount really help? I know it wouldn’t for me. The day has past. Your guests didn’t know what you were expecting and they thought everything was fantastic.

One thing I would consider doing would be to leave an honest review— “This vendor was very kind but my flowers weren’t as I expected and I felt disappointed”….. then go into a few more details. I would keep it very civil and objective.

I am sorry this happened to you.

The same thing happened at our wedding too! She was a day-of coordinator and our florist. She was late arriving to the venue and had absolutely nothing set up the way we had discussed prior to our day. My flowers were NOTHING like we had talked about. Hell, she didnt even put out flowers on some of the tables at the reception. The only thing I can recommend to leave a review and explain what you loved and didn't love. Make sure that other brides are aware. Also, know that as a bride, you are the only one who really knew what the flowers were supposed to look like. None of your guests knew that it was messed up. Your pictures will be beautiful without your flowers, but I totally understand the frustration with the finances part of it. I am so sorry that this happened to you!

There is a major flower shortage going on in 2021. There has been bad weather during the growing season in parts of the world that supply flowers to florists. It is possible that your florist couldn't get what was needed to give you exactly what you wanted, and he substituted as best he could.

You could contact him to see what the issue was, but it I would guess that it says something about this in your contact, and that substitutions may be necessary under certain circumstances.

I don't think it hurts to let the florist know you were disappointed with how things turned out. Worst case he gets pissed off and you never deal with him again, and then you write appropriate reviews on different websites to warn other brides of the potential outcome. Best case scenario he learns something, maybe offers you a refund, and he walks away humbled and you feel a bit less bitter about the whole ordeal.

I do think others made some good points about various aspects of your disappointment that you bring up. Chandelier installs are difficult to do and expensive, and for some reason there is this myth that greenery is a lot less expensive than flowers and that isn't always the case. If you asked your florist to replicate someone else's work with a significantly lower budget, then you are asking for the impossible and some concessions will be made somewhere. Additionally, flowers are organic, natural things and getting the same shapes, colors, varieties, etc may not always be possible, so some level of artistic interpretation will always need to be applied. And all artists have their own style, particularly ones who have been honing their craft for decades - someone who always does tightly packed round bouquets of just blooms is likely going to struggle to create a loose, organic, natural look with greenery, and vise versa.

I absolutely LOVE how our florals came out but I picked a florist whos style represented the style I was going for and was quite general with my instructions. Additionally I saw examples from her portfolio of all of the things I wanted, so I had a good sense of what her finished bouquets, boutonnieres, arbor swag, and table arrangements looked like. Without seeing examples of the inspo pics you showed the florist, his portfolio, and then the pieces he delivered to your wedding its impossible to know what went wrong. I am sorry you were disappointed though!

This just happened to me. I had to delay my reception to a year and half later so I was excited to finally get the flowers I wanted. I had to settle for a local florist for my covid wedding and ended up with 90% pink flowers. I hate pink. I was so looking forward to fall tones and bold bright colors. My florist didn't even stick with the color palette at all. So many white roses when we didn't not want white at all. I'm so upset. I know I am not in the wrong when people spend months or even years planning and then don't get what they asked for. I'm more upset that it upsets me so much because I had to wait so long. I lost my other florist and a $500 deposit. I see you get what you pay for.

I really just want her to make me a bouquet without white roses that aren't already wilted. I'm just so hurt that she blind sided me like that. I was looking forward to something like the dark bouquet with no white not the one with wilted roses (this was the morning after.

This was the inspiration photo

View Quoted Comment Hi Mary!


I am sorry to hear this happened to you. I had similar experience on my wedding day and wanted to share some advice with you.I paid upwards of 10k for wedding florals and did not get the aesthetic vision that I was shown and we went over together in meetings etc. my florals were all WILTED and there was nowhere near the amount that I thought I was getting. I was so disappointed and know how bad that feels when flowers play such an important role in ambience for weddings.I consulted with my parents and we disputed the charge with our credit card/bank company and also wrote a long detailed email to the floral group explaining how we were NOT given the products as promised and outlined in our contract.
Do not wait too long to start taking action, I was given back a decent portion of what I had “paid for.” Unfortunately, even getting some of the money back doesn’t take away the sadness of not receiving what I had hoped for.

I hope this helps!!!
LC

Let the vendor know you are not happy with the product he provided.

Its important to keep in mind that florists cannot exactly replicate another's work. Not even the most skilled florist is going to be able to perfectly dupe your inspo photos. However general concepts like "loose and unstructured", color palettes, and balance of greenery and blooms can easily be honored. If he strayed far from your requests in those regards (which it sounds like is the case) its very reasonable to be upset and communicate your dissatisfaction.

Also, there is an assumption that greenery is cheaper than actual flowers which I have found is not always the case. Sure, any variety of greenery should cost less than a specific, difficult to source, out of season, or high cost bloom, but, at least when I was getting quotes, there was no difference between an arrangement that was greenery heavy vs one that was mostly blooms.

I had the same thing! It was a perfect day and I don't want to have anything tarnish it, but I was so looking forward to bright orange florals. I literally made a PowerPoint with pics of examples and what I would be ok with as complimentary colors in the mix. Come the wedding day the largest flower, in literally all the arrangements, is a nearly neon yellow flower. I was trying to ignore it but then my cake came out, which was supposed to have orange flowers and they somehow used that horrible yellow flower which didn't even match! I don't want to say they ruined it, but it def made the cake less attractive.

They also made the groom's boutonniere so massive it could have been a hand bouquet for the flower girls. So, of course, we couldn't use it.

I did receive all the arrangments, but it's upsetting because I went to great lengths including having them make a semi-mockup to look at. It's eating me up on the inside cause I can't talk about it cause I don't want it to not seem like I was happy or that it wasnt a great day.