Bad Experience With Tai Flora Services In Jamaica - Be warned

I'm back, after getting married in May 2012 in Montego Bay Jamaica. I've been meaning to get back on here and put some feedback on my experience with vendors. Please feel free to reach out to me to ask questions on any aspect of my wedding.    The first piece I want to comment on was the unprofessional ending with Tai Flora services, which we ended up choosing as our florist. It was the only real regret we had looking back on the experience. We spent a tidy sum (over US$10k with them), and it was the only real disappointment in the whole affair.   Colours for our flowers were incorrect for our reception - this after meeting a few days before to confirm with our florist Kerry-Anne Fairclough about all the details. The real doozy for us was the expensive Mandap (which is sort of like a Hindu alter). Our invoice had pictures that showed beautiful dense hanging flowers, which we talked about at length. What we ended up with was a few flowers near the front of the Mandap that looked ridiculous. So much so, if we knew that it would look like that, we wouldn't have paid the ridiculous sum charged for it...   This was all pretty disappointing, and the worst part was that once they got their money, they would not respond to any of our requests. We tried getting a hold of our florist Kerry-Ann and the director of operations Sascha Hossmann, but he just refused to respond to us to talk about this. They weren't having it.   Just a warning to all brides who are considering Tai Flora Services - you may not get what you expect, and they won't acknowledge your existence once they get your money - no matter how much you spend.   Good luck. I'll be posting more reviews on our other vendors who, aside from Tai, where honestly all pretty great.   Jaya

Hi Jaya

I am so sorry to hear about your disappointment with Tai Flora!  That is a lot of money you spent on flowers!   If i spent that much, i would be fuming if they cheaped out and gave me less than what we agreed on.

Can you please please please post pictures of what they did provide?  I am so curious to see what $10,000 buys you for flowers.

I'll see if I can dig up some pictures.

Realize, we had a pretty big wedding at ~90 people, and three different "events". It was a lot of money, and you can believe we are FUMING, and will not let it go:

- Hindu ceremony

- Catholic ceremony

- Reception dinner

Not to completely slag them as some of the elements were nice (catholic ceremony flowers). But they promised a beautiful mandap, and it was pretty embarassing. As well, they got our colours wrong for our flowers. 

They were the worst in terms of communications, and I would highly recommend staying away from them because they were not very dependable.

Again - I will dig up the pictures they sent us of the mandap they promised to deliver, and what they actually delivered....

Hi Jaya,

That is terrible to hear that your flowers didn't turn out!

Tai Flora definitely has taken over the market in Jamaica, so there aren't too many other options. We've worked with them many, many times before and have never experienced anything like that!

Good to hear that all of your other vendors were a success!

Best,

Jessica

So sorry you had a horrible experience Jaya. I really have been procastinating on contacting them because I feel that their prices are way too high and am really aggravated they are the vendor for our resort (Iberostar). I am hoping to be able to have most of my flowers and decorations pre purchased/made to avoid dealing with them, but time is running out for me-only three months to go.

Originally Posted by Jaya 

 

I'll see if I can dig up some pictures.

 

Realize, we had a pretty big wedding at ~90 people, and three different "events". It was a lot of money, and you can believe we are FUMING, and will not let it go:

 

- Hindu ceremony

- Catholic ceremony

- Reception dinner

 

Not to completely slag them as some of the elements were nice (catholic ceremony flowers). But they promised a beautiful mandap, and it was pretty embarassing. As well, they got our colours wrong for our flowers. 

 

They were the worst in terms of communications, and I would highly recommend staying away from them because they were not very dependable.

 

Again - I will dig up the pictures they sent us of the mandap they promised to deliver, and what they actually delivered....

Sorry to hear that. I'm getting married in December at Secrets in Montego Bay and Tai Flora is their recommended florist. Now i'll start looking into alternate options. I have specific colors i want to stick with so i will probably have a problem with them as well if they don't stick with the original idea i would provide. Do you have any pictures of your flowers from the ceremony/reception?

We used Tai for our wedding back in October 2012 and also had a bad experience.  They were supposed to deliver the flowers in the morning around 10AM but ended up waiting all the way until 3PM to deliver them to the front reception.  We had to send a runner over from one end of the resort all the way to get them, sort through them, set them up and get them to the right places (decorations, family, bridal party, etc.) We had our service at 3:30 and I literally had my flowers pinned on me as I was walking to the front for the service.

Try to explore other options if possible but they definitely have a monopoly.

Oh god...That's awful. I am in the midst of talking with them right now and its been a struggle all along...Does anyone have any other recommendations on who to use? Any info on Jan's flowers?