On Occasions of Atlanta, LLC

Carla was GREAT!!! She was there with me on the day of, and had every single thing ready for me. The "Play with Flowers" Day is a great addition too- we swapped around flowers and made it exactly how I had envisioned. She also provided some great wood chargers for centerpieces. Whenever I needed to make a change, she was very responsive. Thank you Carla!!

Well its a good thing I didn't go off of the reviews before I chose this florist!! A friend recommended On Occasions to me for my wedding in September. Being a close friend of mine, I took her advice without hesitation as she knew how particular I was about each detail of my wedding. I was my own wedding coordinator as I just knew no one could deliver the vision I had for our special day the way only I could. Flower arranging is a hobby of mine and has been for about 10 years now so to relinquish this task to a shop was risky. I explained that I did not want roses or any other "wedding-typical" flowers. I also said I wanted each of my 6 girls to carry different bouquets. My centerpieces were a combination of 10 different styles as well. My alter pieces were not to be typical- and boy oh boy did On Occasions deliver!! I felt so confidant after first discussing my vision that I felt no need to call and check in on the progress. I knew from our initial meeting that I had hired the perfect people to execute my dream wedding. I was blown away by the results. The staff was friendly and professional, efficient and on-time. I saw my bouquet about 1 hour before I walked down the aisle and tears came to my eyes.. I actually said do whatever you want based on your knowledge of me and what I'm trying to achieve. It was just amazing!!! Everything was perfect! I am still receiving compliments a month later on the work done by On Occasions!!! It's sad that people are so quick to write about the negative and can't be bothered to comment on the positive. I give this shop and A+++ rating and hope you give them a chance too!!

I was pretty disappointed with the service provided to me, before the wedding in particular. I chose Carla as my florist after good recommendations from other vendors and because she seemed very intelligent at our first meeting. Her original quote was also a price and provided many of the same flowers for less as other florists.

After she got my deposit, Carla was difficult to reach. I always had to email her about two times before I got a response to my emails. After the "play with flowers" day, I wanted a very simple change to my quote -- literally changing the color of a rose. After I had to follow up with her (instead of her getting back to me regarding the simple change I wanted), I met with her about this and she was supposed to get me a revised quote (which was not supposed to reflect a price change, just the color change) within 2 days. Nothing for a week and a half. After numerous emails and phone calls, I heard back 2 weeks later. This should not be the case. Although she said she was on vacation, she did not so much as have an "out of the office" response on her email. No one should feel like they need to find an entirely new florist just weeks out from their wedding.

The wedding bouquets were very pretty and reflected just what I saw in play with flowers day. I was slightly disappointed with the rest of the centerpieces. I told her many times I do not like loose greenery (I like things in a tighter ball), but there was a TON of loose greenery on the larger centerpieces. I was told the large centerpieces would look just like larger versions of the bouquets...but they didn't. I am not even much of a "flower person", but I would have hoped that, after all the lack of communication, I would at least have exactly what was promised. I also did not know until someone came up to me at the reception and asked for my bouquet that it would be a part of the centerpieces...that was NOT part of the plan and particularly awkward when I needed to leave the room (with my bouquet, leaving an empty glass vase on the table) for pictures throughout the evening.

Overall, the flowers made it to the wedding which was the most important part, and I did like the bouquets. It is just exasperating to have to literally harass someone who is supposed to be providing a service when you are the client. I would not have hired Carla if I knew this was the case -- the few hundred extra for another florist would have been well worth it.

When all was said and done, Carla had come through for us. Our wedding flowers were beautiful, everything I had dreamed they would be. But for the brides-to-be, I owe it to you to focus on the days leading up to the wedding. I didn't sleep easy at night. I wasn't sure I had made the right choice hiring Carla. I was in fact, quiet worried that I had screwed up one of the most important elements of the wedding. I waited weeks to have Carla respond to my emails only to have her say she was extremely busy that week with multiple events and assure me that she'd get to me soon enough. Of course, in the end she had got back to me, she had shown up, on time and with the right flowers. We only had one little mishap, the flowers I picked for the pomanders were too heavy. Instead, my flower girl had a wand. I'm pretty sure my flower girl enjoyed the wand more anyways and I appreciated the discount Carla gave us for the mistake. She went above and beyond to make things right in the end. So while you are hiring an unbeliveably talented florist, one who really wants to make sure your wedding day is perfect, when you hire Carla, you are also hiring a very busy florist. While I wouldn't change a thing about our wedding day, I'd wish for those sleepless night worrying about flowers back if I could. So before you hire Carla, make sure you can be patient and have a little faith, you won't be sorry in the end.

Carla Duncan is a nice woman, with a seemingly solid online reputation, which is why we picked her. After reviewing many floral vendors, we were sold on her reputation and after meeting with her, we felt confident in our decision of choosing her. There are a couple of key things to remember when picking Carla:

1) Your play with flowers day is not what you think it is

On that day, you will see flowers that don't look like yours
On that day, you will not see a completed centerpiece
On that day, you basically waste your time looking at flowers that are not the ones you selected, OR intend on using

2) If something goes wrong, expect no accountability

We ordered one color, vehemently, and got another shade altogether. We were promised manzinita trees, and got branches...read your contract carefully. In fact, write the contract yourself, including dimensions, sizes, colors, and EVERY specific detail you can about what you want. Because if you don't, you'll get Carla's interpretation, which isn't what you expected

Carla and her staff were great,awesome and wonderful to work with. Carla took our budget and went beyond, she was amazing at what she could put together. I expected to make some cuts or not have as nice flowers as I wanted but Carla showed me that you could still have what you wanted. I was so thrilled with the center pieces and how they looked in the venue. My flowers along with my wedding party were spectacular. I could not have chose a better florist for my special day. Thanks Carla

Like many of the other reviewers, Carla was extremely sweet and seemed very knowledgeable. I felt that she understood my vision perfectly, which was only confirmed during the play with flowers day. However, Carla did not make the changes we discussed that day, nor did provide anything close to what she showed us at play with flowers day. She even FORGOT the flowers for our wedding cake. My bouquet was wrong, the centerpieces were wrong. Below is the email that I sent Carla after the wedding, which I feel explains everything....

Hi Carla,
I wanted to take a minute to get in touch about the wedding flowers from last weekend. I want to do this not only because I would like a bit of an explanation, but also because I think that an honest review is important for improving ones work in the future.

To be quite honest, you were one of the vendors that I had complete confidence in. That was especially true after the play with flowers day. What you showed us was really quite gorgeous. There were some things that I wanted to change, and I felt that you not only understood what I wanted but knew exactly what to do. For example, the centerpiece example you showed us had white, green, and pink hydrangea and we decided to add even more pink hydrangea to it. For my bouquet, we said we would change from that yellowy "white" rose to the blizzard rose.

Because I had so much confidence, I was especially shocked when I walked into the ceremony ballroom for pictures and saw the flowers. The hydrangeas in the arrangement were all white. Not the 1/4 green, 1/4, white, 1/2 pink ratio that you, me, my mom, and Ashley had all decided on. Luckily, Ashley was able to arrange to have some of the white sprayed pink. But I was still unsure what had happened since the play with flowers day. The arrangements at the wedding were LESS like what I wanted than the sample you had originally shown us. Even the invoice showed that there should be all three colors of hydrangea "pink roses, green and white dendrobium orchids, and white, lighter antique green, and pale pink hydrangea blossoms atop cubed trumpet vases."

I was also surprised to see that my bouquet had a very yellow/ivory look to it and did not appear to have the blizzard roses in it. You did list the blizzard roses in the quote, so I had not thought I needed to double check with you. Also, you had used the orchids with a solid colored soft-pink center at the trial, but the orchids in my bouquet last week had speckled centers. We had discussed both options at the play with flowers day, but had decided that the solid colored center was not only a softer look, but also, you told me, less common.

The last thing that I do have to mention is the cake flowers. Ashley let us peek at the reception room before the guests entered, and I noticed that the cake had no flowers on it except for a few roses on the top, which surprised me because there were no roses in the picture I'd provided, and even on the final invoice, it lists "tier accents composed of stephanotis, pale pink cymbidium orchids, and white dendrobium orchids. rose petals and votive candles at base of cake". From what Ashley said, there were no cake flowers provided. This killed me, because the only flowers available to repurpose on the cake were roses, and I really dislike cakes with roses.

Carla, I really do want to ask you what happened. I am not sending this email out of spite, but I am curious and a bit hurt that what was so well detailed in your quote was not executed at the wedding. Flowers and photography were the most important things to me for the wedding. And while I was able to have a wonderful time at the wedding despite these big letdowns, I will tell you that I spent a good portion of my wedding night and the day after in tears about the flowers. Even my mom commented that it was so shocking given how knowledgeable and incredibly detail oriented you were at the play with flowers day.

Do not be fooled by the "sweet" act Carla at On Occasions will give you. She is not professional at all, she is extremely CHEAP, she messes up the details of your wedding flowers and then accepts NO responsibility. If you care about the details of your wedding flowers, go elsewhere!

1) I specifically said that I wanted NO PINK FLOWERS in my wedding, it was written in numerous email exchanges, said it in person and my contract specifically stated another color choice. I GOT PINK FLOWERS AT MY WEDDING.

2) I said and had in my contract that my centerpieces were to have NO GREENERY, and to only be just flowers. EVERY CENTERPIECE HAD GREENERY.

3) I specifically said I WANTED A STARK WHITE bridal bouquet made of bllizard roses (the whitest). Carla Duncan was very clear on this as I hammered the point home with numerous meetings and emails and it was in our contract. What did I get? DARK IVORY/CREME BOUQUET. Carla then blamed me, the bride, for not complaining about my INCORRECT bouquet right then and there when she brought it to me, saying she could have "fixed it," but then later accidentally revealing that the white roses we agreed upon and paid for were "unavailable" for purchase that day. So how could she have fixed it one hour before my wedding? UNBELIEVABLE.

4) I specifically asked for rose petals to be placed on my white aisle runner that me and the groom walked down. It was in the contract as well. THERE WERE NO ROSE PETALS ON MY AISLE RUNNER AS I WALKED DOWN THE AISLE.

5) We were shown 6-foot tall manzanita trees IN PERSON that we agreed would be used on our cake stand, but on the day of -- we got something entirely different. TINY MANZANITA BRANCHES that were totally different than what we were shown and promised.

6) As per our contract and photo samples, we were supposed to have a FLORAL WREATH (like a Hawaiian lei that people wear around their neck in Hawaii) circling our wedding cake. What did we get? PLAIN ROSE PETALS SCATTERED AROUND!

7) Our cake flowers were shriveled up and MY WEDDING PICTURES ARE RUINED with these nearly dead flowers.

8) Our cake table was supposed to have HYDRANGEAS on it per my contract and our conversations in person and in email, but THERE WERE NO HYDRANGEAS ON THE TABLE. Carla's explanation for this after the wedding was "the hydrangeas must have fallen off the table." REALLY? She should be reported to the Better Business Bureau for that alone.

8) Our very tall vase centerpieces had one short flower submerged in water, versus a photograph that we specifically agreed upon that depicted a vase FULL OF submerged flowers. This was VERY EMBARRASSING and guests all laughed at this. We were mortified.

9) There was NO "PLAY WITH FLOWERS" Day for us. She promises a day where she shows you EXACTLY what you will get for your wedding day, but in actuality she doesn't do that. I was an out of town bride and FLEW across the country to go to her "Play With Flowers" Day to see what my wedding flowers would look like, but when I got there she has a few flower samples. THERE WAS NO ARRANGEMENT MADE FOR US AT ALL!!! She showed us a few flower types and said "Sorry these are shabby, your flowers won't look like this."

10) We agreed on the centerpieces based on a photo. We upped our budget to get our centerpieces to look exactly like these centerpieces in a photo. The outcome was totally different and HALF THE SIZE of what we were promised.

Go elsewhere if you are a bride who really cares about getting good wedding flowers. We spent nearly $7,000 on our wedding flowers and EVERYTHING was wrong. How in the world can this business owner sleep at night?

I can not say enough about how amazing our flowers were. Carla was such a pleasure to work with. I couldn't have imagined our room would look so beautiful. I had no clue about flowers, but she really listened to what I wanted and helped me decide. I would highly recommend On Occasions of Atlanta for any brides special day, she certainly made mine perfect!

We loved Carla! I honestly never could have imagined how great everything turned out. The flowers were absolutely beautiful, and Carla was a pleasure to work with. I would definitely recommend her!

We interviewed several of the high end florists in Atlanta and Carla Duncan gave us the confidence that she understood what we wanted and that she would make it happen. It was a bit difficult to schedule a meeting with her to finalize the flower selections but, in the end, that was a good thing because she was the last vendor with whom we finalized details and she was able to bring it all together. She took a vast space (Fernbank) and transformed it. Thanks Carla!

Carla was terrific! We received so many compliments on the bouquets, centerpieces, and the chuppah. Everything was gorgeous and Carla was there with assistants working on everything. I interviewed other florists that said they could not guarantee they'd be at my wedding since they have several per weekend but Carla said she'd be there and she was. Her work is beautiful and creative.

Carla and I first met over a cup of coffee where she showed me her portfolio and we discussed my vision for the ceremony and reception flowers and decor. After meeting with several florists, I truely felt that Carla would provide the best value in terms of flower quality and design. Carla really seemed to understand my concerns about my budget and she made me feel confident that we could make things work. Carla was incredibly patient with me as I changed my colors repeatedly. Each time I sent her ideas or pictures and she would give me great feedback. It is true that Carla was a little hard to get in touch with at times, but I didn't feel that this was a huge problem because I trusted that she knew what I wanted and that she would come through on the wedding day. My trust was well placed because the flowers on the wedding day were beyond beautiful. The ceremony flowers were great and and the bouquets were awesome. They were even better than the ones she created during our play with flowers day, and I was already impressed with those. With Carla you truely get the best value for your money. She will not deliver arrangements with a bunch of filler. She gives you tons of flowers and she will work with you until the last day to make sure you're happy.

Carla and her staff made our wedding incredibly beautiful. We looked through her portfolio at our first meeting to get an idea of what she could do and what we would be interested in choosing. The second meeting (which was my favorite) was a 'play with flowers' day where she met us at the venue and brought examples of the exact centerpieces, ceremony flowers & my bouquet etc. The day of our wedding the flowers had already been set up by the time I had arrived which was quite early. The transition of flowers between the ceremony & reception was flawless. It was almost as if a ghost was working - I didn't see anyone move anything but everything was set up in place!

On Occasions was a pleasure to work with so I would highly recommend!

Carla is very nice in person but Extremely hard to contact. She doesn't return emails and hardly returns phone calls. I was disappointed at some of the services I received on my wedding day and it made for some stress that I didn't need. She forgot several things we had gone over during meetings that where important to me. I never heard and apology from her after the wedding in regards to the issues that happened during the wedding. She does have very good prices but I would give a warning to anyone before they where to use her as a florist.

Carla was fabulous! the flowers were beautiful and fresh, the colors were intense and striking. She was great to work with as she was able to prepare flowers and decor of the church and reception all while be conscience of a tight budget. we loved the flowers and decor - highly recommend her.

My flowers were absolutely beautiful! Everything was above my expectations.

We LOVED working with Carla. She is one of our favorites. She is extremely flexible and will work with you on budgetJ Very creative with great ideas. The flowers on the wedding were absolutely gorgeous. Carla was ill the week of the wedding L her assistants actually set everything up. There were a couple of “misses” on our flowers. We discussed with Carla and she was more than willing and eager to correct them. None of this took away from our special day. The flowers were all gorgeous. We used 4 larger arrangements that were used at the ceremony and again at the reception. On the remaining tables we had large cylinder vases with orchids submerged in water and a floating candle surrounding by votives.

From the moment I met with Carla, I was confident she was the florist for our wedding. She was very patient in letting me change ideas and plans leading up to the wedding date and adjusting the price. She was fair, honest and helpful in using her experience to make suggestions to make our day even better. I enjoyed the benefit of the "play with flowers" day to see exactly what we can expect.

Carla was wonderful to work with for our September wedding. I didn't have a lot of strong opinions about the flowers for our wedding, and she was great about giving me ideas, showing me pictures, and even meeting me at the flower warehouse to pick out exactly what colors I wanted. She was also absolutely fabulous about keeping costs down! She was flexible about giving me more and less expensive options to choose from. I wanted things to look simple and elegant without breaking the bank, and that's exactly what I got. I got many compliments from guests about how pretty the flowers were, and continue to get compliments from people looking at our pictures. And the icing on the cake is that Carla is an incredibly sweet person who clearly has a passion for what she does. Highly recommended.

Carla is extremely easy to work with and has excellent design ideas. She is honest and helps you work within your budget. The only difficulty I had (at times) was trying to reach her. She is so busy that her time is limited and I often waited days for a response.

Carla Duncan from On Occasions of Atlanta made the wedding planning process so much easier for me. She responds to emails and phone calls very quickly, she has very classy taste; but the most important reason why I loved working with Carla is she made my dream wedding into a reality. She would ask me what I wanted and made it work under my budget.

Carla was exceptional - she is truly a perfectionist and went above and beyond our expectations. My mom and I met with her a couple of times in person and just truly enjoyed working with her. She had great ideas and suggestions. She is so easy to work with and very flexible. She delivers outstanding work. She decorated both our ceremony room and our ballroom and both rooms looked incredible!! We were so pleased with the whole planning process and the outcome - I would strongly recommend Carla to anyone that is in the process of selecting a florist.

Carla was absolutely wonderful. She was professional, understanding, and extremely flexible when it came to what we needed. She was very easy to talk to and did an amazing job of transforming my ill-defined wants (I knew what I wanted but had a hard time trying to describe it) into reality. The flowers and centerpieces were gorgeous, but, even more importantly, I knew that I could really trust her. I would recommend her (and already have) in an instant.

Working with On Occasions of Atlanta was a joy. My wedding colors were a big deal to me and I wanted everything to match (like all brides :). On Occasions took the time to help me look for flowers that matched my palette and gave me some wonderful suggestions. Their expertise in color coordination helped me out a lot. I felt completely comfortable that everything would be executed to my approval on my wedding day which gave me the chance to focus on just getting married and not worry. They went above and beyond and added some additional touches that I was surprised about. They decorated my sweetheart table so beautifully with petals and drowned flowers - something I was not expecting at all. It made me feel like they also cared as much as I did about my wedding day. I recommend this company to every bride that I meet. I am so glad that I invested money in my floral decor. It made a HUGE difference in the ambiance at my evening wedding. Furthermore, they offered creative solutions (candles, dual use of flowers, etc.) that allowed me to maximize my budget and get everything I wanted.

Excellent communication made all the difference for me. With something as special as flowers I did change my mind a few times, and Carla made it easier by keeping really clear notes on everything we would talk about. The flowers looked even better than I imagined on the wedding day.

Carla did an amazing job with our wedding. First of all, she was very friendly and easy to work with. She was very flexible and offered me multiple quotes with different options until we figured out exactly how to have everything I wanted within the budget I set. She even added an extra corsage for me the day before the wedding. She is great at coming up with different options to work with a changing budget. We had a summer wedding with bright pink bridesmaid dresses and I wanted fun, bright flowers that were still beautiful and elegant. I thought Carla's designs were beautiful and unique. Our centerpieces were in large trumpet vases and our hightops had cylinder vases filled with flowers and floating candles. I highly recommend her.

Carla was wonderful to work with! She listened to what we wanted and everything was beautiful! People still tell us how much they liked the flowers and centerpieces. I would definitely recommend her services!

Carla is a professional "lady" with a wonderful sense of style and tradition. She listened to what we wanted and advised us on what flowers would work, even incorporating a family heirloom into the picture. When blue flowers didn't arrive for our meeting, she went to a local grocery store to get the correct color of flowers so that we would have a complete picute of what she was talking about. Her comment the week of the wedding was that she would make sure that the reception was exactly what the bride wanted. She did! The father of the bride had heard the raves about Carla before the week of the wedding. (Long distance parents) When he met her and handed over the final check, he agreed. Written by the mother of the bride

Carla is a wonderful florist. Overall, she is worth the price. I was slightly disapointed with the quality of some of the flowers at my wedding.

Phenomenal work product - best value for the money!

Carla was wonderfully to work with on my wedding. She is very personable and helpful through the process. She also brings so much creativity to her work. I enjoyed working with her and I would recommend her to any of my friends/family.

Everything was wonderful! She meet with me 2 times before my wedding, and super sweet!

Carla and her team were absolutely fabulous! They did a great job of understanding our vision for the wedding, and working with us to come up with a design that was absolutely gorgeous. I can't tell you how many inquiries I've received from other Brides regarding the flowers that we used - especially in my bouquet. In addition to the flowers, Carla also provided the table / chair linens, and other decorative items for the table (e.g., chargers, etc.). It was a great relief to me to be able to work with one shop for all of these services - not only did it help to relieve stress from me (since I didn't have to talk to multiple people), but it also ensured the seamless transition of the wedding vision from one element to the next.

I'd highly recommend her!

On Occasions of Atlanta does wedding florals and is a one-woman show run by the amazing Carla Duncan. She is wonderful - very personable, spends a good bit of time with you, and makes sure that she really understands what you want for your wedding. She spent a lot of time with me and my husband to figure out what would work for our wedding's theme and price range, and put a lot of time and effort into making everything really beautiful - we got a lot of compliments on our flowers! (If she doesn't get back to you right away, don't worry - she will eventually. We played a lot of phone tag, but it always worked out.)

If you have not hired a florist yet, get off of this website and hire Carla! She has an excellent reputation and lived up to it doing my wedding...she truly made our wedding beautiful!

There are not enough wonderful things we could say about Carla Duncan! She did an amazing job on our floral designs and is very talented. Carla even created new centerpieces for us based on our original designs, and they were 1000 times more elegant than any ideas I had presented. Carla is a true sweetheart who will not break the bank on your budget. She is the only florsit I considered and I was so thankful that she was available on my date, although other brides tried to steal her from me!

Of all our wedding vendors, I probably obsessed most about the flowers. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted and I visited with about six florists. My in-laws offered to pay for the flowers and essentially told me to go wild, so my decision of a florist was not based at all on cost- I was going to go with whoever I thought best understood what I wanted and could also come up with good ideas on their own. Carla was by FAR the nicest and most down-to-earth of all the florists I met with, she totally got what I was going for and got really excited about it, came up with great ideas, and wrote me an awesome, detailed proposal of what she could do within a week. She spent TONS of time with us in the weeks leading up to the wedding (mainly over phone and email) as my mom bugged the heck out of her trying to decide what kind of boxes to use for the centerpieces, and she was nothing but wonderful to work with. The flowers at the wedding were AWESOME, and I still get comments on them- we used orchids everywhere, she made us this gorgeous arch for the ceremony that doubled as reception decor, bouquets were great, and she did a fabulous job making us two different kinds (high and low) of centerpieces, which were both pretty complicated, plus an orchid boa for me to wear during the reception.
So I got a great experience, fantastic work.... and her estimate for my dream flowers came in SIGNIFICANTLY below what other florists were saying they'd charge me to use roses and carnations instead of orchids, and to do really scaled down centerpieces.
If Carla is free for your date, you should book her. No question about it. You will get great work, and you will not possibly find better value for your money.

Carla is amazing- both a wonderful person and very good at what she does. She offered us SO much more for our money than anyone else we consulted with and it was all beyond my expectations. She can occasionally be hard to get in touch with right away but she does get back to you soon. Very highly recommended!

Carla of On Occasions of Atlanta is absolutely fabulous. Not only is she wonderful at what she does, but she is also a wonderful person!!

These flowers were gorgeous! Perfect color, arrangement, everything was just so professional.

Carla's work is always stunning. Her flowers are so fresh, as is her creativity. She can take any event and make it fabulous. Everything is always new and fun! I love working with her also because she is so sweet. Probably one of the best vendors to work with in all of Atlanta.

Carla and her team are a joy to work with. During consultations with brides, Carla offers several price points for her services, which is quite unique among florists. They create beautiful bouquets and arrangements - and Carla has a ton of containers and accessories to choose from! The On Occasions staff arrives on time - usually early! I recommend them highly!