Karen Bryden florist - has anyone used her?

[Deleted User] · November 2009

Hi knotties, I'm wondering if anyone has used Karen Bryden of Petals By the Sea as a florist. Her prices are about half of the other florists I'm talking to, so I wanted to make sure the quality of her work was just as good. Let me know!!

[Deleted User] · November 2009

I am using her for my June wedding, so I can't give you any reviews on the product, but I will say I talked to quite a few florists before booking, and she was the most helpful (and still has been) in helping to plan out and design the flowers we will be using. Most other florists I went to were not too helpful in terms of suggestions on flowers - most just expected you to already know what you wanted to use, and had minimal to no suggestions for alternatives.Her prices are definitely much better than any other florist I met with - many by almost half!HTH

kikibird · November 2009

Hi, I'm also working with Karen for my wedding next April, and pretty much have to ditto what awillis said. I've met with Karen once and corresponded several times via email and phone (she's very responsive), and she was able to give me a vision of how everything could look, she seemed to really "get" where I was coming from and gave lots of specifics. I asked her for references of other brides she's worked with before. I haven't tried to contact them, but Karen did provide me with their email addresses. I'm sure if you ask Karen for references, she'll give them to you too.She books only one wedding per weekend, which is nice too.Sorry I can't be more helpful. Would love to hear if there are any Knotties who worked with Karen who've already had their weddings!

RedSoxBride09 · November 2009

I used Karen for my wedding (10/10) and my flowers were beautiful. I carried a traditional, cascading bouquet of calla lilies, stephanotis with crystal accents, roses, and orchids. Because my DH wanted to do some knot work on my bouquet handle, Karen went as far as changing the handle so it would work better with the knot work. I had found a picture of an inspirational bouquet that we worked from but she far surpassed my expectations!My BP carried calla lilies and dark blue dendrobium tied with navy satin ribbon, accented with sand dollars, and my 2 MOHs had stephanotis with crystal accents in their bouquets. They were beautiful and the colors were much more vibrant than I had anticipated.I provided my flower girl baskets, which also had knot work done by DH and to keep costs down, we did stock white and blue flowers in them (I expected them to become rotating objects anyway - they were young girls.) I had expected little flowers in the baskets and they were overflowing. The girls were so proud of their baskets.Another plus for Karen is that she uses magnets for the corsages for the mothers - doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but not having pins on their was a big plus - as they started out without a jacket on and then put one on and moving their corsage was a snap with the magnets.Karen is easy to work with, had great ideas and went above and beyond in creating the flowers for my wedding. I would highly recommend her services. If you have any questions, let me know. If you want to see pictures, I'd be happy to e-mail you a picture if you'd like - we don't have our pro pics yet, but I'd be happy to share a half-way decent family shot for now!

kikibird · November 2009

RedSoxBride, I'd love it if you could send me a pic or two... it would be great to see some more images of Karen's work before my own big day! My email is kikijbird [at] gmail [dot] com TIA!