VILLAGE FLORIST INC

The "traditional" bouquet was beautiful and met our expectations but the carnation bouquet did not come close to meeting our expectations. My son had expectations of a beautiful and full bouquet of carnations. He was embarrassed to bring them home but he is only 18 years old and this was his first experience and thought maybe this is what you get for $45. The carnation bouquet looked as though someone had purchased a $5.00 bunch of carnations from a discount grocery store and dropped them in a discount vase. It was the most hideous arrangement I have ever seen and I was shocked that they considered it a "bouquet" at all and shocked they let it leave the store. It did not appear that any attempt was made to arrange these flowers. There were smaller ones in the middle and big ones on the outside. The smaller flowers were much shorter. It was awful. No other way to describe it. To make matters worse, we had called the florist the day before, as soon as they opened, to see if we could pick up the carnation bouquet that day rather that waiting for Sunday and they said no, it was not possible. I believe the product we ended up with could have been made in 5 minutes or less. We called Vogue Flowers as soon as my son brought the flowers home. The woman who answered the phone was very nice and apologetic. She told us to bring the flowers back and we did. We ended up buying a premade beautiful bouquet and it was actually $10 less. We did not ask for some type of compensation; however, I strongly believe something should have been offered for our time and the embarrassment of presenting such a poor quality bouquet of flowers to a family member. Flowers are personal and special. They tell someone you love them or are thinking about them and you want flowers to be as beautiful as your budget will allow. Each bouquet should incite a feeling of joy when given to a loved one (for a happy occasion). A serious florist understands this and takes pride in every flower that leaves their shop. Somehow this very important bouquet was overlooked. Maybe it was an accident, an oversight but it happened to us and it ruined a special moment and special day - Mother's Day.