Flowers By Darlene at North Shore Fruits Baskets in Salem MA

Today I went to Flowers By Darlene at North Shore Fruit Baskets on the recommendation of a coworker.  It didn’t start out well. Traffic was TERRIBLE.  Salem in October is awful.  So I get there, and the neighborhood is, well, on the edge of town.  I walked in the shop and it wasn’t as fancy as the other wedding flower shops I’d been in.  But I looked carefully at the actual flowers around and there was nothing wrong with them.  No wilting.  Nice, full blossoms.

So I met Darlene, the owner, sat and showed her the bridal bouquet I liked.  She had a form and wrote down prices for everything like the manager I met at Rennie’s, except it was all on a single page, nice and clear.  And I got to keep it at the end, unlike the other.

She didn't get into as much detail about the design of the wedding flower arrangements. She seemed to understand that the scale of the bouquet I like is modest.  I mean, I want everything to look gorgeous, but with only 12 guests in a small home I don’t feel like I need to fill the place with as many flowers as if it was a huge hall.  So instead of going big with the bridal bouquets and then leaving out the cymbidium orchids from everything else, she said our table arrangements would be the same as our bouquets.  And instead of talking about wax flowers (gag) or hydrangeas (eh) she talked about white roses and/or roses for the moms’ corsages and all the boutonnieres.  And she suggested long stem white orchids for the alter pieces.  All flowers I like, which she understood from the photo; no further discussion needed.  I was in and out in about 15 minutes.

And the cost was LESS than I was originally hoping!!

Right away I was shocked and elated because while the other florists said my bouquet alone would be $250 and $150 respectively, the first thing Darlene told me after I showed her what I wanted for my bridal bouquet was that it would be $85.  YES!  I told her I'd think about it because I wondered, "Is this too good to be true?"  But I trust my coworker because she's very particular about decor like I am, plus I looked around online and this place got good reviews.

Darlene told me I could come to the shop prior to 10 am on Saturday and see their floral arrangements for weddings; I’d love to do that because it would be nice to see for sure how well put together they are.  The only trouble is the traffic this weekend will pretty much close off the entire city.  Hopefully I can do it next week.  And although the traffic in Salem is a detriment in October, the distance from this place to my venue is a LOT better than Rennie’s in North Andover.  I’ll be a lot better off with such a nearby florist in the winter.

So I'm psyched; I had this number in my head for what I wanted to pay for wedding flowers.  I really didn't want to pay more for a bunch of plants that are going to die in a week.  I might actually also ask my coworker if I could see pictures of her wedding flowers from Flowers by Darlene, just to be sure they really do look okay.  I mean, it's a HUGE price difference between this place and the other two.  I guess when you're not paying to update your shop to look all fancy, you don't have to charge so much on the flowers!  And since my wedding won’t be held at the flower shop, and the flowers looked just as good as the other shops, it looks like I’ve found my florist.  I decided not to call the other wedding florist I was considering.