Floral Keepsakes

My husband and I were recently married in Maui. My mother-​in-​law decided to bring all of our flowers back from Hawaii, so we figured we’d get them preserved. I called around and Floral Keepsakes was the only place I could find that did flower preservation. I called, and spoke with Lisa. She seemed very nice and even offered to wait after closing for me to take the flowers as soon as possible.
We took the flowers in, and she immediately said it was going to be a $ 200 deposit. My husband and I were shocked, as we were not expecting such a large deposit (which was never mentioned on the phone). She proceeded to explain that the deposit could go towards the arrangement. Where typically each flower ranges from $ 10 and up (I don’t remember the exact number but you get the idea) to be preserved. We thought it was fair, so they could start doing the preserving. So we paid the $ 200. At this point, having not known any better, I assumed the deposit would cover the cost of the flowers.
One month later we went in for an appointment where we would choose the shadow box we wanted our arrangement to go in. We searched the store high and low, and we felt everything was extremely overpriced.
Now that the box was chosen, we discussed what flowers would be used. She charged a flat fee of $ 250 to re-​create the bouquet. There was a separate charge for the leis, the boutonnière, etc. Did I mention a design fee? Well we were charged that too on top of everything else. When everything was said and done, the total was somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 700. We decided to take all the extra’s off and just do the bouquet and have our leis laying in the bottom because of the outrageous price! No Frills. We walked out paying nearly $ 650.
Update:
Lisa contacted me directly to discuss our experience. Although we appreciate her reaching out, the main purpose of this review was not to bash her business. I just wanted people to be aware that getting your flowers preserved can be pricey, as I would have wanted to know that before I did it.
I do want to give anyone doing this some advice– Budget for this, and if you don’t like the display cases in the store, they allow you to bring your own (we were not aware of this). Bringing our own case could have saved us a few hundred dollars!

I had a wonderful experience! Staff was very friendly and my bouquet is beautiful! I ended up also using my leftover flowers to make an ornament for a Christmas gift!

The only thing that we are unhappy with is the price. It’s very expensive to have the flowers preserved here! Then the day I went to pick out my actual shadow box the prices blew me away again. I felt to far in to back out now. I was literally on the verge of tears because of the prices. I never imagined spending more on the preservation and shadow box then I did on the entire wedding party’s flowers. The owner did come down in price on a pre-​made shadow box, but I still spent well over what I budgeted in my head and told my husband I would spend, luckily he was there and told me to up my budget and be happy… even if we really couldn’t afford it.
BUT my shadow box turned out so beautiful! This time my eyes filled with happy tears! Everyone says its just so beautiful. I never had any negative interactions with staff and was never bothered if I was asked to wait a moment when the phones rang, I work retail… I get it! Overall very happy and in the end so worth the money!
If you need to save money I suggest planning ahead before the wedding (which I did not do) and get a price quote for entire box and preservation. That way if you know someone who can make you a box to save you cash you can plan ahead!
I am so happy with my shadow memory box! Thank you!!! ‚)

i was just as unhappy as these other brides!!! unbelievably expensive and very misleading the way they explain things! i paid $ 300 and wound up with only 1\4 of my original flowers and most of those were replaced with artificial. where the heck is the rest of my flowers??? she must have used them for some of the overpriced arrangements she retails. also a $ 45 design fee charge to pin it to a piece of styrofoam, wow! i felt extremely taken advantage of, wish there was a better way to warn brides not to go there

I find it troubling that the first time that I’ve heard «sorry» from this business was when I put the review up on Unilocal.In my opinion, customer service includes calling the customer and offering help, comments or even suggestions for payment instead of a big @ss bill right after a wedding. Preserving the flowers seemed like a good idea but I’ll admit, I should have done my research on the price!
Only after we came in to the shop did the «payment plan» option come up. Did I mention the overall feel of the store? We had an appointment, but in the course of that appointment she helped 2 other people one was a double booking, and answered the phone more than that. I understand small family run business’ but a simple sorry about that, or excuse me a moment, would have been nice. The work space for us to look at the shadowbox was the size of a cardboard box, no room to get a general idea of what this was going to look like. We honestly thought of just taking the flowers and doing it ourselves. And of course I ordered a custom shadowbox, everything that was in the store was either gaudy or I could buy it at Michael’s for $ 30.
Every time I drive by this place I shudder to think who their next victim might be.

Lisa, the owner, has done several custom florals for me and for my clients, and all have been excellent! She has a true talent for floral design. Great containers to choose from, gifts and frames — this is one of my favorite Phoenix gems.

Be ready to pay a fortune to have your flowers preserved and wait at least 3 – 4 months to get them back. My husband and I decided to preserve our wedding flowers. We took them in and worked with the mom of the mother-​and-​daughter team. She was very nice but seemed totally scattered. She let the phone continue to interrupt us while we were trying to conduct business. (They must be very short-​staffed.)
A month later after the flowers were dried-​preserved, we went back to Floral Keepsakes to figure out a design. We met the daughter of the mother and daughter team who was not the warmest of people and was also too busy with her kids and the phone constantly interrupting.
By this point we had invested too much money and time (not to mention our flowers were in their hands) and wanted to get our shadow box done. We upgraded to a custom-​framed shadow box and wanted a classic vintage floral design.
About a month later, after a few follow-​up calls from me, I went to pick up my completed shadow box. What a disaster! I don’t know what they were thinking. I asked for classic design and got some retro/​contemporary funky display. They didn’t even add my husband’s Boutonnière as we had initially requested.
Ultimately, I ended up having my shadow box redesigned. There was a lot of hand-​holding but they finally got it right which is why I gave them 2 stars instead of one.