Middle Atlantic Wholesale Florist

This place is a warehouse. Expect nothing more, and you’ll be surprised! To save money, I ordered and purchased all of the flowers for two of my daughters weddings and made the bouquets, arrangements and boutonnieres with friends and family. We saved SO much money by doing it ourselves! Five years ago, I drove up to this warehouse and felt a tinge of doubt as to what they had to offer. First of all, they don’t have sales people who get in your face and follow you around. I like that. Instead, they casually greet you and tell you to feel free to walk through the walk-​in fridge and pick out the flowers. Bring a jacket, it’s cool in there! Depending on the day, and time of day you visit, there can be an excellent variety and quantity of flowers, or not a huge selection, but always quality flowers and greens. If you want to get there on a day when they have a large selection, call them and ask for the best day or time to visit. They are incredibly helpful when you ask! Otherwise, they leave you alone and let you take your time in picking out what you want. When it comes time to purchase your flowers, ask David or whomever is working for advice on colors, textures and longevity of the flowers. The flowers for my daughters weddings were STUNNING! So many people asked us who did the flowers for the wedding and wanted their information. Ha! DYI + Mid-​Atlantic Wholesale Florist! Since then, many of my friends have used this business for their weddings, parties and receptions. Earlier this month, I did a «drop by» (instead of ordering ahead), to pick up enough flowers to make 18 large arrangements for a class we held for elderly ladies in a retirement home. There were plenty of flowers to pick from. David was SO helpful when I piled the flowers up on the desk to purchase and asked him if he thought the combo/​color/​textures/​amount would work. Seriously, he gave my friend and I a «free class» right then and there on the best way to make the arrangements and different ways to make it easiest for the elderly ladies. So, don’t expect this to be a fast «in and out» trip. Set aside plenty of time for picking out your flowers and purchasing them. Warehouse purchases tend to take more time then a typical store. I wish I lived closer to Alexandria so I could pick up fresh flowers on a weekly basis!

What do you say when the cashier is nice and friendly and loves his job, but is slow as hell? I guess three stars. Don’t come here if you’re in a rush, you’ll pull your hair out.

Over priced. Not many option of flower.

Okay, so, first things first, walk in expecting to have a look of great confusion on your face. This is totally normal, since unless you are a florist, you probably have never been in a floral wholesale building before. MAWF, located in an industrial area of greater Alexandria, is exactly what it says it is: a place to buy flowers at wholesale prices. You are going to get nice flowers at AWESOME prices, but you probably need to do a little bit of research before you just throw yourself in.
I’m in the midst of planning my wedding, and have been discovering just how astronomical flowers from a florist can be. So, in looking at my various options, I decided to hti up MAWF to see what it would be like to order my flowers through a wholesaler and do the whole DIY thing.
This is literally a giant warehouse that’s full of flowers and floral supplies. They do have a small florist attached to the building if you’re looking for someone to help do the actual arranging and whatnot. There’s a bit refrigerator room, as well as buckets of flowers laying out, though nothing is labeled so it helps to know what you’re looking for already. They have a price list so you can see the pricing of everything as well (they’re not labeled on the flowers themselves.)
We arrived at around 11 AM on a Monday, and it seemed like a lot of the freshest flowers were already scooped up by local florists (it opens at 6 AM) so that may be something to keep in mind.
The woman I spoke to, Sheila, was very helpful in pointing out how the whole thing works (you’d place an order for your flowers a few weeks ahead of time, and then pick them up a couple of days before the wedding to prep and hydrate them at home), and offering some suggestions on popular flowers as well as ones that will be impossible to get in January (bye bye, peonies.)
They do event consultations at the wholesaler as well, by appointment only, and for a fee. So if you need help in determining exactly how many hydrangea you’ll need for your 17 centerpieces or whatever, they can assist you with that, but armed with enough Youtube Tutorials and Pinterest, I think you can probably figure it out on your own as well.
This is a great place if you’d like to pick up fresh flowers on the cheap, and they also have lots of vases, floral tape, all that good stuff. It’s just a little haphazard and disorganized, but the flowers all speak for themselves. $ 2 hydrangeas instead of the $ 5 or $ 7 you’d pay from a florist? I mean, sign me up!

World class fresh flowers! Great service, fresh, always helpful… supports the military too!

I grew up around florists and wholesalers in NYC so I may have a completely different take on the average customer’s experience. My experience with the place was exactly what I needed since I knew what I wanted… a few dozen roses for family. Don’t go in expecting to be pampered; be courteously aggressive and know what you want.

I’m honestly baffled by the negative reviews here. I’ve used Middle Atlantic for several years (including when they were Northern Virginia Wholesale Florist) and always had a good experience with them. I do wedding flowers for my friends and they have always loved the flowers. The selection at Middle Atlantic allows me to be very creative.
The key is that this is a wholesale florist, so it is best to know what flowers you are interested in and order them in advance. You can definitely go a couple days before an event and get some great flowers, but if you want something specific order it in advance. Plan ahead & submit your order to the staff in advance — they will always insure you get your order. Flowers get delivered in the very, very early morning hours on Mondays & Thursdays. When I pick up I try to get there early so I can get my order at its freshest and then I pick up addition in-​season flowers to accent my previous picks.

I would rather pay a florist 3 times the amount of money than deal with this company again. The employees clearly don’t communicate with each other or with their clients. We wanted to order flowers from here for our wedding and waiting for a week, calling every day for an answer to a simple question. When we finally placed an order we were charged more than was on the price list and before we could call back and cancel (sine I could find cheaper) they processed our credit card. When planning a wedding, every dollar is important. They just don’t have much care for their customers and it shows. I would never come back here or recommend them to anyone.

The lack of interest shown by the employee was only exceeded by her obvious disdain for my question. As a matter of fact, I stood in clear view patiently waiting for her to finish conversing with her friend and was ignored until I walked away. No «Be with you in a moment?», or «Did you have a question?»
C’mon, you can do better than that. I was with someone who was starting up her own floral shop and would have been a regular.
Don’t bother… the frustration isn’t worth it.