Philadelphia area florists

elmzar

Can anyone recommend a Philly area wedding florist with good prices and service? I'm getting married near Willow Grove, PA, so I'm primarily looking for a florist in Montgomery or Bucks County, or NE Philly.

Thanks!
Emily

kamira87

I'm using eventricity. Phyllis is great and will work with ur budget.

deija97

I am using:
DLa Borgata Florist 987 Bristol PikeBensalem PA 19020215.639.1800
www.dlaborgataflorist.com

bridetobe71412

I'm using Petals Lane. Brittany is great and prices are very, very reasonable. Plus, she really listens to you and will let you change your quotes a million times, which i found very helpful.

Also, unlike some OTHER florists, she was very flexible and suggested many different florals for within my budget. She didn't just hear "peonies" and only quote me for peonies. Instead, she suggested other, similar flowers that are cheaper than those, that looks similar and have the same effect. Honestly, she was the ONLY florist I met with (I met with FIVE) who made those type of suggestions. Others just heard "peonies" and came back with outrageous quotes.

PSA: Robertson's SUCKS. I drove all the way out there from New York, spent 1.5 hours in a meeting with them, and the guy never even provided a quote! Who do you think you are, wasting my time!? I should bill him.

 

elmzar

Thanks for all of the feedback!  I really appreciate it!

bridetobe71412

http://petalslane.com/aboutus.html

That's the website for Petals Lane. You won't be disappointed!

Teep

http://www.neflowerboutique.com/?cPath=20

They have really original looking stuff.

adrienne0925

I am using Pennypack Flowers in the Northeast.  Lisa is great and willing to work with your budget.  I am getting all of my flowers and centerpieces for under $1000!

BethtoWed

Like a lot of brides on this board, I used Whimsical Welcomes and was thrilled with her prices, patience, and creativity. Leslie works out of her home, so she doesn't have the overhead of a flower store.  Plus that allows her to give her brides lots of time and attention.  She's located in Montgomery County.too.  Check out her website and blog where all her latest photos are. www.whimsicalwelcomesflowers.blogspot.com Or you can "like" Whimsical Welcomes on Facbook too.

lauren123455

I'm using Carl Alan and I LOVE LOVE him!  He's downtown, but I'm pretty sure he travels.  His motto is that you should love your flowers and love them in your budget.  So you go in and tell him your ideas, he tells you approx what your ideas will cost and asks you if that's in your budget.  If and when you say no, he asks what your budget is, and then finds a way to work your ideas into your budget (or as close thereto as possible).  I was at my consultation for 5 hours - they had ordered every single flower I said that I liked, we made my bouquet, the BM bouquets, and the centerpieces.  Then his designer counted each stem and made a quote on the spot.  When that was still above my budget, we reworked all of the centerpieces and repriced them.  At that point, I decided that my original vision of a tall centerpiece didn't go with the modernity of my venue, dress, or small centerpiece, so his designer Adam had no qualms about scratching the tall centerpiece we'd spent 2 hours making and starting fresh on a whole new vision. It was really a fantastic experience and I KNOW I'm going to love the flowers the day of because I've already seem them before booking.

I also met with Mary from A Garden Party and Brittany from Petal's Lane.  I really really liked both of them as well and think I would have enjoyed working with them as well.  A Garden Party is in NJ, but I know they travel (my planner booked Mary for a client's shore weddin, so they at least travel 60 miles) - and they were the least expensive of the 3 that I met with.  Mary is really great and willing to work with ANY budget.  And she has fantastic ideas.  She's located on a farm in Salem County where the tax rate is only 3%, so that was a big help  

I also really liked Brittany and was impressed with how well she knew my venue.  She had some really fantastic ideas.  My wedding planner mentioned my budget on the way out, and Brittany thanked us for letting her know ahead of time, but then her quote came in 50% over the budget.  My planner went back to her to rework the proposal once, but the reworking wasn't much better, and at that point I was sort of over it since I felt like I was up front about my budget to begin with and she didn't really care to take that into consideration.  That was just my experience with her --- every single other person that I've met LOVED her and found her to be very affordable, so I'll be up front that my experience was the anomoly  (although I loved her personality and ideas!)  I'd highly recommend meeting with either Mary or Brittany or both.

But even more so, definitely consider having a consultaion with Carl Alan after you've met with a few others.  The way I looked at it, since you likely won't have seen any actual flowers at your consultations with other florists, at least you can email Carl ahead of time with your ideas, including flowers that you discussed with those florists.  Even if you don't go with him, you can get an idea what the flowers you discussed elsewhere would look like when grouped together.  But trust me, you'll understand why they have a 95% booking rate once you sit down and start being hands on in the process of making all of your bouquets and arrangements.  It's SO fun and so comforting to know exactly what you'll get and exactly how much it will cost before you even walk out the door.  (The worst thing for me about my other meetings was leaving and being SO excited about what we discussed but also SO nervous about whether those ideas would fit into budget and not knowing for several days!)

jelybeancg

Ditto Lauren about Carl Alan. That is who I am using.

gkishbauch

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_pennsylvania-philadelphia_philadelphia-area-florists?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:105Discussion:c6b8b663-4b07-4fd7-9735-4476755e803bPost:73ddcfe3-10d2-40f1-832c-522d44ec7f2e">Re: Philadelphia area florists</a>:
[QUOTE]Ditto Lauren about Carl Alan. That is who I am using.
Posted by jelybeancg[/QUOTE]

<div>This :)</div>

bridetobe71412

FWIW, I hated Carl Alan. Being a floral novice, I found it frustrating that he heard "roses" or "peonies" and didn't suggest other, more affordable flowers that would have the same effect. Honestly, I met with Adam too and felt it was a huge waste of my time. Unless you know precisely which flowers you want, I wouldn't go with him. It's true - they order in your flowers and then, during your consult, they help you create arrangements. Don't get my wrong; it's fun. But unless you have them order (literally) every single flower you'd want to use, knowing each name of each flower, precisely what colors, etc., you will not get the creativity that you'd get with another florist.

That's just my experience. I'm sure he's great for some people. I just personally didn't enjoy the experiene and felt like I was getting a very bland arrangement for an exorbitant cost. In fact, I'm getting literally twice as much from Brittany for the same cost as what Carl Alan quoted.

jelybeancg

Bridetobe - I had the exact opposite experience. I am a flower novice as well but learned what I liked and didn't like before I went to Carl Alan. And when I got there flowers that Brittany from PL had suggested and would have used in my bouquet were not at all in the color scheme I wanted and did not go together at all. I would have hated my bouquet. I think she is very talented but there was an obvious disconnect.

Also, Adam was very honest. Peonies that Brittany promised, Adam told me it would probably not be possible to get. I am getting married at the end of winter and these certain peopnies only maybe would be in their first week of availability. So, literally week of, if the season did not go perfectly, Brittany would have had to call me and tell me the main flower in my bouquet would have to change. She did not tell me that would be a possibility at all.

And to some my bouquet looks pretty plain but that is how I am and what I like. All the other florists were pushing me to use all of these flowers I had never seen in person and didn't know if they looked good together. And as it turned out I didn't like how they looked together.

For me, Brittany was only around $300 cheaper, but Cal threw in free cocktail hour centerpieces and lowered the delivery/set-up break-down costs to make them even.

The deal breaker was how much Cal cares for his customers. We were there the day of hurricane Irene. Cal was having the flowers delivered the day before knowing the area of the suburbs where the wedding would be difficult to access the day after the storm. He included a free second set of all personal flowers (bouquets, bouts, coursages) in case they were ruined while the bridal party had to travel from the house, to the limo, to the venue. He had the second set in the fridge at the venue just in case.

Just a different perspective.

lauren123455

I totally agree with Jellybean.  I know absolutely NOTHING about flowers, and even after all of this I still know very little.  When Cal asked about what I like, I just went through my propsals from Brittany and Mary and wrote down the names of some of the flowers that I had discussed with them.  It also happened that they lost my email explaining my likes/dislikes and color scheme, so they bought in flowers in every color to have their bases covered.  I said straight off the bat to Adam that I wanted my BM bouquets to just be white and I didn't really know much about which flowers - he went through about 10 different white flowers, showed them to me, arranged them, etc, until I was happy.  And also going off of what Jellybean said, I had this idea in my head about what I wanted me centerpieces to look like which every florist I visited understood and would have been able to create.  But when we made that come to life w/ Adam, I didn't like it - so I thought it was huge to figure that out NOW before deciding on a propsal and having to change it 2 months before the wedding when I finally have a mock up made and then have to rework the proposal. 

And pricewise, I gave Cal a budget and he came in as darn close to it as he could. I didn't have an exact budget, as I wanted to be sort of flexibie and cut back on other things if need be, so I gave them a range between X thousand (the lower) and Y thousand dollars (the higher).  Mary from Garden Party came back very close to X thousand (like X200 or something).  Cal worked to get me close to Y thousand (like Y100).  And Brittany came back $2500 over Y thousand (and it's not like my budget was $30,000-31,000 or something where that sort of difference would be less significant of a portion of the budget). 

The moral of all of these stories, OP, really is that you should go and see lots of different people!  Because all of the people suggested here are very highly regarded.  And there are TONS of people who LOVE each of them.  And then there are a few stragglers who don't love their experience meeting with some of them - as I had a more negative (although largely satisfactory) experience with Brittany, and Bridetobe seems to have had a similar experience with Cal.  

But pricing aside, I'd really recommend seeing several florists, making an appt w/ Cal (it's free) and having him order all of the flowers you were excited about from the other proposals (they'll likely be itemized, so you can copy paste), and seeing the flowers in person.  Worst case, he's over budget, but you've seen how Cal would put the other florists' ideas to life, and you'll see those flowers together.  And that way if you go with a different florist but realized that you don't like the way that florist would do your centerpieces or bouquet, you can go back to the florist you choose and say that and get the proposal redone before you give a deposit and wind up reworking the proposal on the eve of the wedding and (potentially) having to pay significantly more.  Win win!

Bride_to_be_2011

I used petals lane and adored my flowers!!