Scarlet Petal

I first met Esther last fall when she was setting up a wedding at a venue I was considering (and ultimately chose). I was clueless about the floral and decor issues and she helped guide me. She was really flexible in changing around our plans as I learned more about what I wanted and what I liked. Esther was really helpful in working within my budget without sacrificing what I wanted, and really worked to understand my vision. Prices were less for more product than at a few other places I looked at. I visited the studio a few times over the winter and spring-- not a fancy showroom but very practical. In the spring/summer, they always had tons of flowers being prepared for the weekend. One perk is that their wholesaler is in the front of the building, so when I wasn't thrilled with a choice of flower at my showing, we were able to look at and touch a huge variety of orchids until I found what I wanted.When Esther showed up on my wedding day with our bouquets, I was floored. They were more of what I wanted than I had envisioned or described. We got a million compliments on Esther's centerpieces-- weeks later, people are still telling me how much they loved them! Staff was super responsive on our wedding day too. Thanks Esther & Scarlet Petal!

Esther and the team at Scarlet Petal were so amazing that I don’t even know where to begin. My husband and I got married in July at the InterContinental Chicago. We visited two other florists before finding Esther, and we knew within five minutes of talking to her that we’d found our wedding florist. We knew next to nothing about flowers, but we did have strong opinions about what looks we liked and didn’t like. Esther was quickly able to pick up on our tastes and made outstanding suggestions. She even brought out flowers and vases to help us visualize. And unlike the other florists we met with, Esther helped us strategize ways to make the most of our budget. Our flower arrangements and bouquets were absolutely gorgeous. Had I not known how much we paid, I would have guessed our flower budget had been thousands more than it was. We received so many compliments on our flowers, and we definitely have Esther to thank. She was absolutely delightful to work with, and we so much appreciated her patience, honesty, and creativity!

Jenny Anselmo at Scarlet Petal was fantastic! After our first meeting, I thought she had a good idea of the look I wanted - elegant, simple, not overdone. Her proposal was right on target and everything was pretty easy from there. She made the ceremony and reception beautiful with the chuppah and centerpieces with lilies. Our bouquets were lovely as well. I found the process pretty easy and painless and the outcome flawless. I would use them again for an event and would recommend to anyone planning an event.

Scarlet Petal provided our flowers and decorations. They did an amazing job! We received many compliments from our guests. The venue where we had our wedding said it was one of the best looking weddings, and that all of the flowers and decorations were beautiful. We were able to see samples before our wedding, and their timeline for final head count was very easy to work with. Scarlet Petal is a great vendor to work with.

I worked with Esther for the floral at our wedding (Sep'10) and she is absolutely amazing! I had met with a few other florists when we started planning and I was set on one until meeting with Esther. She was able to draw up an incredibly detailed description of what I had (rather inarticulately:) discussed with her in the span of about 20 minutes. After looking at her plan for our wedding and checking out samples of her work, there was no question who was going to do our floral! The day of the wedding, I was beyond thrilled with the results. The pieces were so lush and stunning, while still keeping with the simple, classic look that I was going for. Esther used these gorgeous silver and glass vessels to add color and variety to the arrangements. I remember sitting at the table during dinner and just admiring everything around me. It was exactly what I had wanted- I had described something out of the 1920's and I honestly felt like I was in the middle of the Great Gatsby:) Esther was a pleasure to work with throughout the entire process and was always willing to throw in her opinion on anything from placecards to linens, etc. whenever I asked. If I had to do it again, I'd go with Scarlet Petal in a heartbeat!

I chose Scarlet Petal because I feel like they were the only ones who truly understood my modern vision for the wedding flowers. They came up with the centerpiece ideas – which I loved since I didn’t have a lot of ideas. The girl we worked with the entire time left the company a month or so before our wedding so we didn’t have anyone we knew that came to our wedding. The owner was helpful and responsive to my questions, but when the actual day came, I was disappointed with the size of a few of the items. When I voiced my concern about one of the items, I was issued a refund without even asking for it. They handled everything well and had great ideas, but for what I paid I think I could have gotten a lot more for my money.

We worked with Jenny and she did a fantastic job. The bouquets and centerpieces were gorgeous. Our reception looked like a fairy land of candles and flowers. I will say Scarlet Petal is on the expensive side, but in the end it was worth all of the money.

We were incredibly fortunate to work with Esther on the flowers for our recent wedding. Upon walking into the room, we were absolutely blown away. Esther did a remarkable job. Our guests are still commenting on how beautiful the ballroom looked. We saved some of the flowers and they were stlll blooming almost a week after the wedding!! The wedding was in a hotel ballroom which can be total blah, but Esther transformed it into something magical. Seriously, people have been using that word to describe the space and credit for that goes solely to Scarlet Petal.Esther was really easy to work with and understood our budget constraints. Her proposal was super easy to read and understand. When we had questions she promptly sent answers and images to assist us.After speaking with a number of other florists, I was really feeling lost and jumped for joy after we met with Esther.Oh and my bouquet....even more than putting on my wedding dress, seeing the bouquet that Esther made for me really made me feel like a bride.

Flowers were very high on my priority list for my wedding and Scarlet Petal totally met and exceeded my expectations! I had a certain look I was going for (romantic/vintage farmers market feel) and they totally captured it. I LOVED my flowers!! They were a bit pricey but not too bad considering the service and quality of product I received, it was definitely worth it!

The flowers were beautiful, especially the flowers on my guest's table. This vendor has great vision and was easy to work with although communication feedback was a little slow. If I had to do it over, I still would have chosen this vendor. I think the value was great and my ceremony and reception were beautifully accented.

Scarlet Petal was our best vendor. The flowers were AMAZING ... seriously AMAZING. My bouquet cost $400 and it was well worth it - HUGE, gorgeous fragrant flowers. Just perfection. All of the flowers were simply beautiful.

We had a chuppah which absolutely took my breath away. It looked significantly more beautiful than the sample photo I had given her. Just stunning.

My only complaints were that they were to provide the flowers for our cake, and I gave them a photo of what our cake would look like, and they did not put any flowers on the top tier. So ... we had no cake topper which looked ridiculous (to us). And that we wanted to use more white hydrangea than green hydrangea in our reception centerpieces which we went over with Jenny. But, the day of, the centerpieces looked exactly like our mock-up ... lots of green hydrangea. Not a big deal, but noteworthy.

I WILL NOT RECOMMEND SCARLET PETAL - AT ALL. I was EXTREMELY disappointed by them. Shame on them!!! Learn from my experience with them and stay away from them!- We spent almost $6,000 and didn't even get a mock up of our bouquets and centerpieces or adequate meetings. - Our 1 big meeting was very short and abrupt and interrupted by Esther's personal phone calls. Ugh....- The bouts were ridiculous and were not quality enough that most actually didn't last to the reception. Who wants that? - Speaking of bouts, they forgot one. What "florist" forgets a bout? - The centerpieces we received were about 25% of the size we paid for. - After showing images and drawing a picture of the place card table, Scarlet Petal still didn't get it. Our place card table was a joke and we were very upset that the first thing guests saw entering the reception was 1 of many Scarlet Petal's goof ups.- When I told them of my various problems (these were just some of them)...they didn't care. Grrrreeeat.I am a pretty easy going and happy gal. Scarlet Petal makes me FURIOUS and ticked us off so much that I felt the need to write about my awful experience with them. There are A LOT of good florists in Chicago. I would not recommend Scarlet Petal. Scarlet Petal, fyi, the customer is always right. I think it would be best if you take a Business 101 course and learn how to better treat your GOOD CUSTOMERS and learn Business etiquette. You did not deserve my money!! We were ripped off - you get little and very little quality for what you pay at Scarlet Petal. GO ELSEWHERE! (I noticed this comment deleted before, which makes me wonder if "someone or some business is deleting negative comments. hmmmm.)

We worked with Jenny and she was fantastic! She did the flowers at my sister's wedding and both of ours turned out great. She was so patient with me and very responsive. She did a great job working with our budget and the arrangements were absolutely beautiful--our expectations were definitely exceeded! Everything was very straight-forward cost-wise, and we really appreciated her willingness to work with our budget. It was very easy to coordinate delivery times as well and the whole process was stress-free. We'd highly recommend!

Jenny was a pleasure to work with and didn't mind me re-confirming details MANY times. As a result, we had a beautiful ceremony and reception. THey are a true pleasure to work with.

I cannot say enough about how much I loved my florist. I was a super decisive bride and knew exactly what I wanted right when I walked in so we did not have much contact during the planning process. When I did have questions or I forgot to add a nosegay or something of that nature, Esther was quick to respond and get back to me. Where she really stood out was on the day of the wedding. We had decided to save money by constructing our own Chuppah (This was the only DIY that we did for our ENTIRE wedding - in retrospect there is/was a reason that I don't DIY) We purchased bamboo poles and used Plaster of Paris to anchor them in buckets that were wrapped in satin that matched our bridesmaids dresses. The covering was my husband's late grandfathers prayer shawl. Well when we made it at home it worked. Day of, not so much, apparently every time they tried to get the prayer shawl up it brought the whole thing down. I had no idea this was happening and somehow Esther made it work, she had someone go out and get her fabric and worked her magic and got it up. If they wouldn't have been able to, it would have been devastating to my husband's family to not have that aspect of his religion in our wedding. So thank heavens for whatever she did to make it work!The flowers themselves were amazing, exactly what I envisioned, all blue hydrangea's, NO filler, mixed high and low centerpieces. We walked into see the room before the guests were allowed in and I kept saying Holy shit, is this my wedding?? I then proceeded to swear like a truck driver, because that's what I do. It was good swearing because I LOVED it. My bouquet was exactly what I wanted, the ribbon on it was a little on the whiter side when I was all in Ivory so Esther ran and grabbed different ribbon and fixed it in a matter of minutes.She was AMAZING!!

We worked with Esther and had a wonderful experience. At our first meeting with her, I came with a hodge-podge of pictures and ideas and Esther sat with us for a good 3 hours sifting through everything to wittle down the ideas and come up with a plan. I wanted something different and centerpieces that wouldn't "compete" with our venue (the Chicago Cultural Center) - Esther really understood my vision even though I couldn't find the words to articulate it sometimes. She was very responsive to emails and invited us into the studio to go over the revised plan when I decided to change the centerpieces. She is a true artist and you can tell that she has a fantastic eye - in many of my emails back and forth with her, I couldn't make decisions on things, so I'd just say, "please do what you think looks best, I trust you."I could not have been more pleased with my flowers on our wedding. I actually started to tear up when I saw my bouquet and my BM's bouquets and my eyes welled up again when I saw the reception room for the first time. Every single thing was executed perfectly and we're still receiving compliments from guests that our flowers were some of the best people have ever seen.

Scarlet Petal is incredible! We worked with Jenny, and she was absolutely amazing!We did a lot of internet research and met with a number of very high-end florists. Everything in Scarlet Petal's portfolio was as beautiful, if not more beautiful than the other florists we met with, and they were less than half the price.Jenny was great to work with and very patient with us. My husband and I were not well versed in florals, so when asked what kinds of flowers we liked, gave answers like "not pink ones" and "submerged ones." Jenny was able to tease out what we liked and give us an education in orchids at the same time. I can't recommend them more highly!

We had a larger wedding at the Knickerbocker Hotel. I LOVED Scarlet Petal! Jenny did an amazing job with our wedding and we had so many compliments on our arrangments & centerpieces. The best part was also the quality and at a reasonable cost since she gets the flowers wholesale. There is no overhead from a floral shop and no random orders to worry about. I would recommend them to any bride. She responds great to e-mails and also called us a few days before when the orcids did not come in the exact color that we were expecting.

Scarlet Petal rocked my world. The flowers, which were identical and just as beautiful as the trial, were amazing. I am in true awe of their work. On the day of my wedding, I didn't like my bouquet. She quickly whipped up a new one for me. I was very impressed with her work and style. To top it off, Esther is a delight to work with. Many of my guests complimented the decor. I had one male guest ask me, "Are those big balls of carnations real?" I was impressed that a male would notice the flowers! I would highly recommend.

Outstanding! Esther and her staff at Scarlet Petal created the most beautiful flowers for our May, 2008 wedding! She listened to our requests, made a sample table bouquet for us to take to our tasting and incorporated the most beautiful flowers in our color palette. The flowers lasted throughout the night (in our boquets and the men's boutineers) and were just stunning. The next day we enjoyed the flowers at our brunch and they looked brand new!

They followed our budget and made suggestions as to how we could make it work within our guidelines. Esther was there (the owner) personally delivering our flowers to our home, church and reception site. Even the banquet manager at the reception (Medinah Country Club) told me how wonderful Esther and her staff were to work with! They were quick to respond to questions over e-mail and on the phone. I would recommend them over and over again! If you want beautiful flowers that really look fabulous for you wedding... go with Scarlet Petal!

Both Jenny and Esther were a pleasure to work with. I was having a hard time finding florists that were willing to do exactly what I wanted but these girls were very flexible in terms of what I wanted done, the price, and coming to my office to meet with me. They did a wonderful job on everything and I would highly recommend them to anyone.

Scarlet Petal's flowers are fresh and innovative. The designs are always beautiful. I really enjoy photographing their stunning floral designs!

Professional, fresh and artistic...Scarlet Petal takes floral design to the next level.

Creative, professional, lovely floral designers.

Scarlet Petal produces an absolutely stunning event. They are able to swing from traditional and romantic to fun and funky. Esther and Jenny's knowledge of flora is beyond compare. Highly recommended!

It's always a pleasure whenever we get the chance to photograph flowers by Scarlet Petal. I would definitely recommend Scarlet Petal to any bride looking for a florist.

I am always excited when I hear that Scarlet Petal will be doing the flowers for an event that I'm photographing. They do such an amazing job with fresh and exotic arrangements. People always ooh and aah when they see them in the photos. I just can't say enough good things about them!