Weddingbee boards

So, our florist is an exclusive vendor at our venue. At this point, I would not recommend our venue based solely on the experience we've had with the florist. Since we started dealing with them, it has taken them months to respond to numerous emails, and only after I sent reminder emails, asking whether they'd received my initial inquiries. In desperation, we finally emailed the owner of the venue, and received this response from the florist. All emphasis (bold or underlined) is theirs, with my reactions in square brackets:

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Since you've mentioned respect; it goes two ways [except that we are paying you, and with customer service, last I checked, the customer is right]. Your idea of a "timely manner" [um, less than 7 weeks?] does not seem to be the same as ours, and we assumed it could be appreciated that it is the middle of wedding season [even though multiple emails I sent were not during wedding season], as we've expressed. That said, our focus is on our current clients, as it will be on you, in September; it has nothing to do with the size of the budget.

Additionally, it is to be recognized by all parties that we have spent hours already working with you here in our show room and via email. Since September, we have done all of this for you on our dime [all they've done is send me some pictures of what they intend to do, since I was unwilling to just give them money and hope it didn't suck]; your securitydeposit [sic] and contract are a requirement after your first meeting, in order to proceed. [Never mind that our first meeting didn't actually include any pictures of what they intended to do, and it was never told to me that our deposit was required.] Several email [sic] (can be seen in the chain, attached for the record) [which is funny, as it illustrates that their responses have, multiple times, taken months] have been sent by [owner] and me, with numerous photos, revised attachments, and an offer to meet with you again. [Even though the owner specifically said that they prefer to do things over email.]

As well, our minimum for a centerpiece is $50 [except, as per the first paragraph, it has "nothing to do with the size of the budget"] - yours is down to $15 [which was the number suggested by owner of the company, not me, after I told them that their initial estimate was beyond our budget]. This exception is being made, to you,as a favor, not because we are, as you've stated, "obligated" to work with you [except that as an exclusive vendor, not only are we required to work with them; they're also required to work with us].  We are not in the business of haggling [which they didn't do, as they, themselves, suggested the $15 price]. If something is too expensive, then it should not be purchased [except that we have no choice, other than just not having flowers, as we have to use their services].

Moving forward, the items that I planned to discuss with you when I called and left a voicemail today are inserted as comments [in which they finally answered my email from May 28th, but still without any pictures] within the attached proposal or in the email below.

If you have any issues that you would like to review, call us - as [venue owner] is not involved with the wedding flowers [even though he specifically selected this florist as the exclusive vendor]. We also need your contract and a 50% deposit.

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So, am I being unreasonable by viewing this response as totally unprofessional? Would you want to do business with this company? And if you want actual names, PM me, as I'm not willing to put them here, for fear of google searches and retaliation.

@jenbrandner: The owner of the venue did see this email - he was cc:'d. I'm still waiting to see if he has anything to say.

@jen33: The owner of the venue received both our original email and the vendor's response. And yeah, during our next meeting with them, I fully intend to tell them that we wouldn't recommend the venue, based solely on the florist.

@MsEucalyptus: If only your mom were closer, I'd contract with her and just sneak her flowers in :)

@LindsayB: I'm using my hatred of the florist to complete our Mrs. Guinea Pig-style escort cards and 20 tissue paper pomanders :) I'm also planning on using clutches for my bridesmaids, and using pocket squares instead of bouts.

@octopus: Yeah, I also remember that speech. *sigh*

@jenbrandner: I was never willing to sign a contract because they never provided any visual examples of what their work would look like. In one email the owner sent me, he said a certain centerpiece would cost $45. In the next, he quoted $15. And despite multiple inquiries, he never clarified the actual cost. Plus, we're required to use them, so I'm not even sure how it would work if we waited on signing a contract.

@Professor: We've tried. The owner of the venue explained that, based on his contract with the florist, he'd be sued if we went with another vendor.

@edisonsgirl: We are not permitted to work with another florist, even if it's just obtaining arrangements from them. This was actually one of the first questions we asked the owner of the venue. If we use another florist, he will be sued. And, at this point, we've had so many problems that I'm worried about even doing them ourselves, for fear that the florist will accuse us of having worked with an outside florist, and I don't want to deal with the potential legal costs. And even if we go flowerless, we're still expected to work with the florist with some ideas. For instance, I want centerpieces that are almost entirely candle-based. If we use any vendor for this at all, it has to be the venue's florist. In regards to DIY - our ceremony will be outside and the reception will be under a tent. Should it rain, I believe the plan will be to have the ceremony under the tent, cocktail hour inside, and reception back under the tent, with the venue re-doing the tent decor during the cocktail hour. Should this happen, I don't want to worry about the wedding party cranking out 15 centerpieces and getting everything in order during the cocktail hour. As it stands, my only recourse is to use the florist for as few things as possible. We're not doing bouquets or bouts. Our escort card table will look beautiful enough with just the escort cards (the kusudama flower version that Mrs. Guinea Pig DIY'd). And anywhere that I can think of where we could do the decoration ourselves (i.e. in the cocktail hour area, since there's no reason of that part of the reason to be moved), we're taking care of it. Their initial proposal was more than twice our budget. By deciding to use them for as few things as possible, costs are now below our budget :)