All growing up north shore fruit basket / flowers by Darlene was my go to place to get all of flower needs taken care of.
When we first met with Darlene to plan our wedding, we explained our vision before she would give us a quote she wanted to know what other florists quoted us. We told her the amount that was given to us and she gave us an amazing quote of $1400 well under what others quoted us for the same work. Both my wife and myself left there pumped to have found someone with such great prices who didn't seem to be high balling us to do our wedding. My wife a few weeks prior to the wedding kept asking for the invoice so that we could pay it off. Darlene said she was still preparing it and would get it to us shortly. 4 day prior to the wedding we finally got an invoice for over $1000 more than she quoted us. She went back and forth and was very short with my fiancé when trying to figure out what happened. Finally after stressing my fiancé out the week of our wedding I had to intervene the day before our wedding I politely explained that her initial quote was 1400, and wanted to know how it increase but such a great amount especially without either of our approval and we were only told 4 days prior to the event. Darlene was very short with me, and said maybe we added more tables. I advised here that I had been extremely organized and was in charge of all the numbers since day 1 and when we first met with her we gave a number of 200 guests to play safe and then reduced it to 140 well before the wedding, so the amount of tables wouldn't have only reduced. Darlene was very short with me and completely unapproachable. Finally I just told her "here is my credit card number to pay the amount". she at first kept saying she just wanted us to be happy and I explained we were quoted what you said and now it's almost doubled for no reason just days prior to our event, she refused to have understanding or try to resolve it so i told her I'm trying to pay my invoice, since we weren't getting anywhere. In no way do I possibly see the amount increasing that much even if a few changes could have been made. Instead of giving us an explanation Darlene just kept going in circles, a simple I apologize flower prices went up or a clear explanation of such a change would have gone a long way in my opinion, but we couldn't even be given anything of the sort.
I am shocked at the customer service and lack of respect or compassion shown, we both feel like we got robbed and that she had trapped us by undercutting the competitions price and then just mere days before up charging giving us no other options. She also left out some very important meaningful simple details in our wedding plan, such as a simple yellow rose to place on a seat with a picture for my wife's mother who had passed away in her memory. I am disgusted by this practice. Flower by Darlene does great flowers but to avoid the stress the week of and the feeling of being taken advantage of I would honestly recommend going somewhere that charges more but doesn't play these games.
I am very sad to say that they have lost a loyal customer, I truly hope no one ever has to deal with this treatment the week of their wedding! read more
