Giovanna Rebagliati
3/5
Last week I ordered a bouquet of flowers from City Florist in Hemet, on behalf of my office for a coworker who'd had a death in the family. We ordered the medium sized Victorian Romance arrangement directly from their website. What was delivered was not nearly as nice and sophisticated. They replaced every single flower without informing us. They gave us white roses instead of cream colored ones. They replaced the lavender color wax flowers with pink dyed baby's breath and instead of the graceful and elegant ivy, they gave us your average green filler. For this they charged nearly $100, which included a delivery fee of $11.99. The card was hand written in a very sloppy handwriting, not done in a printer. Sophistication lacked all around. When my friend sent me a photo of the flowers she received I was very disappointed and embarrassed. I immediately called the shop and I was told that the owner, Paul, would contact me the next day and that they hand write all their cards like that. Paul did call and was very surprised that I was a dissatisfied customer. He tried to make amends by sending my friend a house plant in a 7" pot at no charge. I had to point out that the plant he was suggesting cost no more than $15 at Home Depot and certainly wasn't worth the $99 we'd spent. After much discussion, we agreed that he would send a three house plant arrangement in a 10" basket. He agreed to first send me a photo of it. When the email arrived he sent a photo of only one plant and suggested that instead he send a vase of Star Gazing Lilies and pick up the old vase from the first arrangement (which was nearly a week old at this point.) I found this last part very tacky. I asked him to stick to the original plan of three plants in a basket and asked him to please not embarrass my office further by asking for the old vase back. He agreed and then proceeded to ask me to please post a review on Google since he had been very accommodating, so here I am. I believe that we, the consumers have a responsibility to support small, independent businesses such as this one, but in turn they have the responsibility of informing us when what we pay for is not available. I wish I had ready the reviews on Yelp before doing business with this florist. Paul, if you are reading this, please buy yourself a printer and please make it a habit to inform your customers on the availability of what they have ordered from you.
To his credit, the three plant arrangement was delivered today and it was exactly as he had said it would be. Is it worth $100? I don't think so.
