Only florist in town.
I ordered flowers to be sent to a relative blind/over the phone. While the arrangement was nice, I feel like it was insufficient for the amount I paid, and there was some creative accounting when it came to how much I was charged. Based on the picture of the arrangement that was sent to me by my mom, there appears to be only 9 flowers in the entire arrangement: 3 proteas, 5 tulips, and 1 hydrangea looking thing. The final cost of the arrangement was $73.45.
Tax in NB is 13%, making the before-tax price $65.
Delivery was $5, and I’m sure I was charged something for the vase (Which, by the way, was a god-awful orange frosted glass one, and not a nice, classic, clear glass one like I had assumed they’d use).
I know the proteas were $8 per stem, and I’ll assume the hydrangea cost a similar amount.
So the way I see it, I was charged ~$6/stem for tulips.
There was a fair amount of greenery, so I’m sure I paid something for that too. But when a person orders flowers, they’re looking for flowers, not bullshit that isn’t flowers.
I aslo strongly implied over the phone not to use tulips. In my opinion tulips don’t work well in floral arrangements because their stems keep growing even when cut, and their lifespan is so short compared to other flowers. Within a day, their stems can grow a couple of inches, miss-shaping the bouquet, and then within 3 to 4 days tulips will start dropping petals and falling apart, and you have to pick them all out and re-style the bouquet as almost all other cut flowers last 1 to 2 weeks.
Anyway, despite implying not to use tulips, I didn’t outright say “no tulips”. I had basically told the florist, “This is my price range, do whatever you think looks nice”. Thinking that for $70 the bouquet would be full enough that a couple of tulips wouldn’t be that noticeable when they had to be picked out.
Lesson learned: Specify each and every detail. Don’t leave any room for the florist’s “creativity”, their idea of good-taste may differ from your own. And if you have to order over the phone, I suggest doing something simple where the odds of the florist taking creative-liberties are lessened: like a dozen roses with baby’s breath in a clear glass vase.
Anyway, service was fine. Will probably end up ordering again (it’s the only florist in town). I’ll just be more clear on what I want and don’t want.