Arena's Inc. — Attraction in City of Rochester

I went into Arena’s for a quote on flowers for my wedding. I had gotten quotes from 5 other comparable shops in the area. My first complaint would be the lack of professionalism from Benn, the person I was texting to set up the meeting. He was too casual for me. He even asked if I had gotten other quotes (which nobody else did). Upon arrival to the shop he greeted me by the wrong name. I had an appointment and thought this was not a good way to start, especially considering the long list of flowers I was in need of and the amount of money I was potentially going to be spending there. I will say Benn was friendly. It took over a week and a half before I contacted Benn again and asked if he had put the quote together. Every other florist I went to either calculated things immediately or had a proposal to me within 48 hours. I found it offputting that he hadn’t sent me any updates and then I had to contact him myself. I texted him and asked about my quote. He told me that it was looking like over $10,000!!! He never sent me a formal proposal and when I told him that would be way out of my price range, didn’t even reply. That’s just terrible customer service if you ask me. Didn’t even try to work with me or ask how we could work together to get the price down. Which was 50% more than other quotes and even two higher quotes I had gotten were still only around 7,000! Based on the customer service and the ridiculous price it’s safe to say I brought my business elsewhere. It would have been one thing if the customer service was unmatched and they seemed great in every way, but there were red flags right...

Pretty disappointed. I'm from Boston, locally I am familiar with Winston's (the absolute BEST) so I asked for a personal recommendation on the best florist in Rochester from a friend. I went to the website to confirm and was initially delighted with what I saw. They don't have arrangements to view online, just pretty photos of past work and the flower shop.

To play it safe I decided on an orchid (you can't mess up an orchid can you?) I asked the rep if they would 'dress it up' which I should not have to do at a florist of this caliber and she assured me it would be beautiful.

Well my girlfriend sent me a photo of her delivery today and all I can say is that it is = to an orchid I could have purchased myself at a Lowes or Home Depot for $25. I wish I could post a photo here for you to see it. While it did have 2 stems of flowers, it was in a basic clay pot and the 'dressing up' involved some moss under the leaves. For $100 this is really a slap in the face.

If you do order from Arena's you have to be very prescriptive apparently. I called to let the shop know my expectations had not been met and Edward told me I should have stated I didn't want a clay pot. Interesting how it turns out to...

Growing up I'd always wanted to visit this store. The way it looked and the window design was so appealing to me. My first visit was my last. When I came into the store, the clerk asked me to put my bag up. I looked around to see if anyone else had to do the same, and there was a woman walking the store with a bag slightly larger than mine that was not asked to do this. If you are going to practice this with some customers, you should practice this with all customers. This happened a while back, but I am now ready to share this experience. It's alienating, discriminatory, and will leave out the last word that encapsulates...