Editorial Policy

How a Service Gets Reviewed

Every service covered here required a real order on a real occasion: birthday, funeral, baby shower, apology arrangement. When the delivery arrives, I photograph it against the same fixed background (a window ledge in my home office) and set that photo next to the original listing screenshot on the same screen. Each order becomes a spreadsheet row: service name, occasion type, recipient's city, what the listing showed in species and stem count, what arrived in species and stem count, whether a substitution was disclosed before delivery, whether the delivery window held, and the difference in vase or packaging quality from what the listing depicted.

A service earns a positive recommendation only after at least one order holds up. If two separate orders miss badly, both go into the review. If the first order was good and a later one was not, the review says that.

The Substitution Column

Substitutions get their own tracking column because they are the most consequential gap between a listing and a delivery. Online services substitute species when the fulfilling local florist runs out of what was ordered, typically within 24 hours of the delivery date, with no requirement to notify the buyer beforehand. The policies each service publishes tell you how much latitude they have reserved for this. I read those policies before each order and flag any gap between the published policy and what actually arrived.

For funeral orders and orders going to recipients with known sensitivities, the substitution risk gets explicit mention in the review. Lilies are among the most frequently swapped-in species and carry real risk for pollen-sensitive recipients.

Affiliate Links

Some outbound links to delivery services are affiliate links. If you place an order through one, the service pays a commission at no additional cost to you. Commission rates have no effect on what gets written about a service. A service that sent carnations instead of the peonies ordered for a funeral gets that fact in the review, with the same weight as any other substitution in the log.

Corrections and Updates

Delivery services adjust their florist networks, same-day cutoff times, and substitution policies without much public notice. If a review no longer reflects how a service actually operates, use the contact page. Reader reports have added material to published reviews before. Shawn Edelstein reached out after the FTD piece ran with detail on a nearly identical order, and that account ended up in the published review with his permission. That kind of follow-up is useful and changes what gets written.

Geographic Scope

All orders here originate from Pittsburgh and go to recipients across the Midwest and East Coast, with some reaching Atlanta. Delivery reliability varies by zip code, local florist network, and season in ways that are not visible from Squirrel Hill. For a high-stakes occasion, check the substitution policy directly with the service before placing the order.