Decoration & Florist

The BLM took a break off to wonderful Malta at the end of April, so that the blog has not been updated in the past couple of weeks.

So…what should we talk about this week? Let's talk about decoration! We searched all over the lower mainland area in Vancouver for a decorator to handle the arrangement for both our ceremony and reception. Ideally a "one stop" shop service is preferred, due to the fact that we don't live in Vancouver. It makes more sense to hire someone to handle the details and to minimize the number of vendors we have to deal with individually.

While we visited Vancouver in February, we consulted 6 shops that are able to deal with both the floral and venue decoration arrangements.

1) Fannie's Florist Ltd. - #105-8460 Alexandra Road, Richmond, BC
Fannie is the owner of the shop and the only person who can really give you a quote on your needs. You should make an appointment to speak with her directly at the shop before you walk in. Fannie told us she takes at most two bookings on the same day for event decoration and she will personally be at the venue to direct her staff to make sure everything is perfect. Since the Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club does not provide any chairs for the ceremony, we are expected to hire our own. Fannie even agrees to arrange the ceremony chairs set up/return/delivery on our behalf. Another advantage that Fannie offers is a demo prior to the event, price included in her quote. Fannie's Florist is truly a one stop shop for wedding arrangements. The total cost is quite reasonable and she requires a CAD$500 deposit only (many require half of the total as deposit). Fannie's flower arrangements are overall decent, but when it comes to venue decoration…we are not entirely pleased with her designs. The style is just slightly outdated (有D "leung"). Even without knowing the ethnicity of Fannie, I can tell immediately that she's a Chinese designer from an older generation by her previous work.

2) Something New
We met Something New at the Bridal Wagon, hosted at the River Rock Casino in March 2010. First of all, I would like to mention that this event was NOT worth going because there were so few vendors available (just one vendor in each category). I'm not sure if all Bridal Wagon functions are like that or it's just the one I went to was so small.

Something New has no real office, it's run by two women in Port Coquitlam at a home office. We met with both representatives, Kimberly and Amanda, at the initial consultation to share our ideas and provided with a quote via email a week later. Compare to Fannie's Florist, Something New is slightly more expensive by CAD$700 given the same items required (also including the chair rentals). Something New's demo at the Bridal Wagon was gorgeous and classy. Also, the two reps were nice and easy to work with even though we requested revision on our quote several times. They even allow us to split the fee in three installments (rather than 50% deposit upfront). We were so close to signing the contract with Something New until we realized aside from the demo at the Bridal Wagon we haven't seen any other photos from their previous work as a full decorator for a wedding. Something New was originally a florist only until not long ago the store expanded to provide decorating service as well. When we requested photos from their previous events, Kimberly and Amanda were unable to provide. They gave us references to contact, but coincidentally either the reference only hired them as florist or no longer retain records of the event (this reference said she is divorced so didn't keep anything). The flower arrangements made by Something New were beautiful but we felt uncomfortable to go ahead without any idea of how well they handle a complete wedding.

3) Bridal Beginnings
This is another home office in Coquitlam. The owner, Larissa, is a stay at home mom. We were taken upstairs to her living room where a bunch of vases were displayed randomly on top of her television. Then were shown with her collection of chair covers and sashes (FULL of stains) displayed in her dinning room. People who know me well must be aware that I'm a clean freak. I was seated reluctantly at the dining table with several vases trying to imagine which vase to use as centerpiece without blocking the line of sight. We told Larissa our theme color is purple…thereafter her suggestions only comprised of shades of purple or of complimenting color of purple (e.g. pink). She kept emphasizing the quote will follow within the week. We received an email from Larissa the week after saying that she was sick and would give us the quote in the next few days. Guess what happened??? She disappeared in thin air and never got back to us.

4) Florist on the Fifth - 8031 No. 5 Road, Richmond, BC
Florist on the Fifth is our favorite pick for flower arrangements. In terms of cost, this shop is probably the most expensive among the ones we have spoken to (will not handle chair rental).

5) Kam Ngai Orchid - #1415-4380 No. 3 Road, Richmond, BC
We feel indifferent about the flower arrangements here, overall not pretty but not ugly. The shop also refused to handle chair rental.

6) Flower by Jean at Southland - 3008 W. 41st Avenue, Vancouver, BC
BMM said he didn't like the flowers; I can't remember whether I like them or not. I want to say two things about this store: 1) we were very annoyed by the sales repeatedly reminding us that they made the flower arrangements for Clinton's visit years ago; 2) the boss was on holiday at the time we visited the store and the sales was unable to provide any information whatsoever.

Since we came back to the UK, we wrote to another 4 decorators: 7) Lisa Gregory Special Events and 8) Cultured & Co. Wedding, both have VERY expensive quotes; 9) Imagine that Events, reasonable quote but the photo gallery was only satisfactory; 10) Jack & Jill Weddings, a tad expensive on rental, set up and service fees, compare to the others we talked to, excluding 7) and 8) but we love what we saw on the website. So we have submitted a retainer to Jack & Jill Weddings to hire their service on our wedding day. I will get into details as to what we require from Jack & Jill Weddings on the next post.

I'm planning to write about the ceremony and the reception decoration on two separate posts. To be continued...