I do NOT enjoy writing bad reviews whatsoever, even moreso for businesses I was really REALLY excited to try out.
I had been following Wildflora on instagram for quite some time. Their photos of beautiful blossoms and arrangements had me captivated. So much so, that I showed them to my fiancee and told him to make a mental note, that if he ever needed to buy my flowers, this was the place to buy them from.
Fast forward a few months of following them, and my fiancee and myself found ourselves needing to get an arrangement of flowers. We were having an engagement party (on Labor Day 9/5/2016) and needed a vase of flowers at the entrance to the house to make a bit of a statement. I made my fiancee drive us here, we talked to Alex and told her that we needed something for our engagment party on Monday (we came in on the Friday a week before labor day). I first started by asking if they were even open or if they'd be able to help us if we needed something for Monday. Alex told us that she would try to arrange for the flowers to be delivered to us on Sunday, if not we would have to come to the store to pick them up. We told her we'd be perfectly fine with picking them up ourselves if need be.
We then start to talk about the arrangement itself. I told Alex that the flowers would be sitting on top of a baby grand piano at the entrance to our house and that they were specifically for Monday, our engagement party. She asked if we had anything in mind. I said not really...my fiancee had asked if they could use some dahlias because they were my favorite flowers and Alex said yes. Alex also suggested a color palette of purples, whites and green for the arrangement because we mentioned that our wedding colors were purple and grey. After that we settled on a price range of $150-$175 (ended up paying $180 with tax).
I ended up calling them the Saturday before we were suppose to get the flowers to confirm whether they were getting delivered or not and they told me they had arranged for the shop owner next door to be at the shop for us to pick up flowers (strange...but not an issue). We had specified that we needed to pick up at 11AM as we had to be down in the Torrance area by 12P. I confirmed that we would be able to pick up at 11AM from the shop owner next door and the girl had told me yes.
My fiancee and I show up on sunday at the shop owners store (the mattress store right next to wildflora) at 11:15AM and he tells my fiancee that he forgot we were even coming and had lent his car to a friend and that the keys to wildflora were on his car keys. We sat there and waited for him to call his friend to come back so that he could get the keys to go into Wildflora and get our arrangement. We're at 11:45AM now and we finally get the arrangment and my initial thought was diappointment.
The first thing I noticed were the abundance of CLOSED lillies used in the arrangement, some small purple flowers and some pink roses. (Where did pink come into the color palette?). I immediately looked at my fiancee and said to him "I don't think those flowers are going to open up by tomorrow" and sure enough...none of the closed flowers opened up the next day (the day of our engagment party). The lillies used (and some of the roses) actually didn't bloom until 4 days after our engagment party. So on the day of our engagment party, we had a vase full of what looked like leaves. I was pretty upset at having paid $180 for that. I understand most florist use closed buds to ensure a longer lasting arrangement, but if a client tells you they need something for a specific date, you probably shouldn't use closed flowers, or flowers you aren't sure will bloom in time. I honestly would have been completely fine with a fully bloomed arrangement that had died the very next day after our engagment, because we didn't need them to last, we just needed them for that day. It's like getting flowers for your wedding day and getting centerpieces and bouquets full of closed flowers...what's the point???
We e-mailed Alex and expressed our disappointment in the arrangement and stated that dahlias were not used because she couldn't get a hold of fresh ones (understandable and not a big deal)...as for all the closed lillies, here exact words were "For the lilies some open faster than others. It's difficult to time the opening when I get them in so frequently." Like I said, it just seems like common sense, not to use flowers you won't know if they'll be bloomed in an arrangement a client had expressed was needed to be on display for just the one day.
In her defense, she did offer us a 10% discount off our next purchase with her due to our dissatisfaction, but after that, needless to say, we were hesitatnt to go back.
I can say that our initial meeting was great and the shop itself is very cute and that's where I give them 2 stars...but I won't be coming back. read more