Holmes Shusas Florists, Inc

I rated this 5 stars originally because our first meeting for wedding floral went so well. He seemed so interested in our wedding details and seemed to love his job. He described white roses with hydrangea for the centerpieces. I was iffy on that because the hydrangea is an inexpensive filler. I want people to see flowers in the centerpieces and not a bunch of filler. After reading some reviews about how the meetings went very well, but that day, the flowers were disappointing, I was really worried. At our final meeting, I really stressed how I don’t want to see a lot of hydrangea and we added more flowers to avoid being disappointed. I was so disappointed! There were a total of 8 roses in each centerpiece… and that was after we paid more to add 4 more roses in each centerpiece! Can you imagine a centerpiece with only 4 roses and a bunch of hydrangea! So my next issue… my bouquet was discussed to be a bunch of white flowers, but with some small blue flowers scattered throughout to break it up and add a pop. It was all white with more hydrangea on the bottom. Next. I showed him a picture of a boutineer I really liked. It had some greenery in it and a couple of small white flowers around the white rose. I showed him and he said, «it will be better than that.» So we got 8 boutineers… every single one was one white rose with nothing else! We had a separate bouquet for our wedding toss and a small bouquet for the flower girl. I gave the flower girl the small bouquet and didn’t know what the random stems of tiny white flowers wrapped with a ribbon around it were… (they reminded me of about 6 stems of baby’s breath.) It was when I couldn’t find the toss bouquet that I realized it was the small bouquet I gave to the flower girl! I literally grabbed a bridesmaids bouquet from a table and threw that! I was mad at how skimpy our floral was after we added more roses, that I kinda felt embarrassed. I wish I had seen them before people came, because I would’ve asked someone to run to the closest grocery store and grab a ton of white flowers to add to them!

I ordered my wedding flowers from Holmes & Shusas and I have to start off by saying that I was very disappointed in my flowers. I expected better quality and I did not receive what I had expected.
The meetings I had with Paul and the staff were phenomenal — he is such a lovely person, truly passionate for weddings. I had also been referred there by many people. So I was so comfortable with this vendor choice, especially after my meeting with him. He took the time to get to know me, understand me and my vision and his main goal was making me happy. I truly enjoyed my meetings with him and they were far better than any other floral vendor I met with. He quoted me on my wedding flowers (wedding party — bouquets and corsages etc) and the pricing was very comparable to other locations — where he really surprised me with how he explained he could give me very pretty centerpieces for my budget which I had initially decided to forego because our venue and church would be decorated (our wedding was just after christmas) so I didn’t feel the need to spend the majority of our budget on flowers. I was so happy with this that I thought wow, everything will be perfect.
On wedding day — I opened the box of the flowers and was so disappointed by the quality. I had asked for 2 dozen white roses in my bouquet. Paul actually recommended I do 18 saying it would be «too big» and «take away from my dress» after some back and forth — I said OK, sounds good. Most people try to upsell you but I felt like he understood my look. When I saw these roses, they looked sadder than a grocery stores dozen bouquet. I actually almost asked someone to run across the street to the grocery store and get me 2 dozen white roses but at that point I decided, I’d work with what I had.
The centerpieces were what he described and I was not entirely disappointed in those. In fact the roses were much fuller in those centerpieces. They also set up our candles and additional tablescape décor which we truly appreciated it.
Overall I was disappointed. I asked others what they thought and they said they were disappointed too but fortunately I had such an elegant dress that you barely noticed the flowers. It just would have been nice to get better quality.

My sister from Wisconsin ordered flowers for me, and as usual, its a bit scary to order from a business in which you are not familiar with. She told Holmes-​Shusas that she wanted «unique» flowers. I feel they went above and beyond delivering me a bouquet with delphiniums, peonies, and star thistles, and other very nice fillers. It was/​is absolutely gorgeous. Thank you!

Mom gets all her Christmas greens here, so when we were planning her wedding she knew she wanted her flowers from H-​S.
We did not have an appointment, just walked in (1 week before wedding) and described what we were looking for — church piece, reception center pieces and groom’s flower. About 10 minutes later we were out the door, happy with our plans.
Later that night, Mom got a bit nervous as we had only talked colors and types of flowers, but hadn’t actually seen what H-​S was suggesting, so we drove back the next day and again, just walked in and expressed our concern. Presto, they pulled 4 flowers to show us the colors and blooms they were going to use in the arrangements. Since we brought the groom with us we also discussed the bride’s bouquet and added that to our almost last minute plans.
On the day of the wedding, everything was perfect — altar piece and bride and groom’s flowers delivered to church and center pieces to reception hall. No fuss, no muss. We felt the price was very good for all we bought.

I previously rated Holes-​Shusis and gave them five stars; however, I recently had my wedding and wanted to update my rating of them.
Yes, Paul was spectacular in our meetings together. I felt as though he truly understood my vision and the price sounded right.
Unfortunately, I now feel as though Holmes-​Shusis was our least favorite wedding vendor. The bridesmaid’s bouquets were definitely NOT what we had decided on during our meetings and the pew bows were way too long and THE WRONG COLORS. I paid an arm and a leg for flowers for the cocktail tables and they looked extremely cheap, as there were only two roses in each vase (again, the WRONG color). The altar vases, which he assured me would be ample flowers on the altar, were tiny and out of place.
In the end, I actually felt as though I paid TOO MUCH for what we received. Paul knows what to say and how to woo a bride, but his end product fails to meet the mark.

We used Holmes Shusas for our wedding overall the experience was pretty good, they missed the mark on one fairly major decorative piece that really killed it for me.
We went to about half a dozen florists, most indicate that they only book for one wedding a day, which is to your benefit if anything goes wrong. Holmes-​Shusas does not and you probably will only have the delivery guy who has no idea what you ordered to deal with on the day of your wedding.
Paul was very respectful, patient and reviewed all our options. He also gave us samples of what our picked out arrangements would look like so we could show with family. Ironically enough, the samples lasted a lot longer than the flowers for the wedding. The flowers for the wedding were already wilted by the end of the day they were delivered. Everything was a pleasant expereince up until the day of our wedding. On our wedding day everything fell apart in my opinion. One larger piece was delivered that required assembly, since the delivery guy was by himself my father needed to help him. The biggest arrangement of all our arrangement was not delivered, we were told multiple times by the guy that ‘this is all i have’, he went back to check but then confirmed that the main center piece arrangement for the church entrance was not made nor would it be delivered and no one was there to make it. We were reimburced the amount for the arrangement but it hardly made up for it, we were very disappointed.

We used Holmes-​Shusas for our November 2007 wedding. Although it seems like it was only yesterday, this review is way overdue!
Out of all the decisions that we made regarding our wedding, this was the best. The staff, most notably Paul, treated us with respect, truly listening to what we wanted and taking into account our budget. I thought the prices were extremely reasonable.
The flowers they delivered on our wedding day were absolutely beautiful. Everything from the bouquets to the table arrangements was perfect. I wore a gardenia in my hair and carried a small bible (instead of a bouquet) decorated with flowers and ribbons– in the hands of Holmes-​Shusas, these were perfect and unique accessories to a wonderful day.
Even though we’ve moved out of state, I continue to use Holmes-​Shusas for flower deliveries back home. I strongly recommend this florist!

I found Holmes-​Shusas via Unilocal as I was looking for a florist in the
Worcester area in December who could deliver an arrangement to a nearby hospital. I had called another florist initially, recommended by someone at the hospital, but after hanging on hold for several minutes decided that wasn’t the customer service experience that I wanted.
My experience with Holmes-​Shusas COULD NOT BE IMPROVED. The service was immediate, responsive, and helpful in recommending among choices. The arrangement was delivered within hours and received compliments throughout the month. Paul had steered me toward an arrangement that would last longer, and so it did. It was a beautiful and cheerful arrangement that lifted spirits during the holiday.
I found the prices VERY reasonable. I would definitely use them again, and highly recommend them.

We found H&S via google. Shocking I know, if you’ve seen our other reviews you can see that everything except where we had our reception we found online. We set up an appointment for an initial consultation with Paul back in May, maybe even April. He took us to his, what I’ll call office. The room is small. set up for up to 5 people to sit, including him, but not move much at all. But the space serves it’s purpose. Also helps that he has a few awards on the walls from various wedding review places such as ‘the knot’ winning ‘best of’ awards for central Massachusetts.
Paul was very comforting, made my wife and I feel very confident in him. He obviously done many weddings before us and knew what he was doing. We went over a checklist that he had of what we wanted, and he started right at the most important part; the bride’s bouquet. He asked what she wanted for a bouquet, and my bride was not sure really. So Paul said to me «Mark, you know that fountain out front on the other side of the building? I need you to go and look at it for oh, the next 5 or 10 minutes. Don’t worry about the time I’ll let you know when you can come back.» That was fine with me, since I knew he was about to ask about what the bridal gown looks like. Actually I liked that he assumed I knew nothing about it, which was true I only wanted to know the color so I can dress to match.
Side note, Brides you need to tell the grooms if the wedding dress is an off white, aka cream, accrue, ivory, so that when he orders the tuxedo’s for himself and groomsmen he can get the same color shirt so your dress doesn’t look dirty.
Back to the review: After going through everyone who was going to get flowers and what types we also discussed how the bouquet’s were going to be wrapped and prepared. We decided to use some spools of ribbon the same color as the bridesmaids and MOH dresses. We also used the same material that the Jr. bridesmaids used for their dresses.
There wasn’t much more needed with him, little follow up between the 1^st appointment and dropping off the ribbon for the bouquet’s and then the week of the wedding discussing, or better put, reviewing where and when to drop off the flowers the day of the wedding.
Overall our package was:
Bouquet’s for; Bride, MOH, 2 BM’s, 3 jBM’s, 1 Flower Girl
Boutonnieres for; Groom, Best Man, 3 GM’s, 2 Ring Bearers, 5 Parents of the B&G (yes 5), 4 Grandparents, and 2 readers
Plus 6 bow’s for the reserved pews, and 2 large flower arrangements for the alter.
Also one of the best things about H&S. The MOH got the throwing bouquet from them as well, had it added to the order and all parties that knew (MOH, Groom, and everyone at H&S) successfully kept this information from the bride. Until the day of the wedding when all the flowers people were wearing was delivered to the hotel and the bride with her Hawkeye’s saw it and called the MOH out on it.
H&S delivered and set up the flowers at the church, on the alter and the bows on the pews. They also delivered the remaining flowers to the hotel where the bride was 2 hours before the service. Plenty of time for everyone to get their flowers and attempt to put them on. There was nothing missing, no errors, no mistakes, in other words:
Perfect!
Thus the perfect score.
I will add, they are a bit pricey, and so I have given them that price range, however they are NOT outrageous, and for the work they do, well worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY!!!

If you are getting married in the Central MA area, this is the florist you MUST use! We found Holmes-​Shusas at a vendor night at our wedding location, Harrington Farm, and it was one of the best decisions for the entire day!
I sat down with Paul about 9 months before the wedding with fabric swatches from the bridesmaid dresses, a few pictures, and some vague ideas about how I wanted the flowers to look. He spent an hour with me, showing me different options and color schemes, and taking my vague vision and creating the most amazing reality in the world.
Their prices were very reasonable, and more than fair for the beauty of the flowers they delivered. It is one week later and my bouquet is still thriving beautifully — a living reminder of a truly wonderful and beautiful day.

Holmes-​Shusas did our wedding flowers, which were simple, elegant and tasteful. They were super friendly and efficient.
I’ve heard they’re a bit pricier than much of their competition, but we didn’t notice any major price increase.
I’d recommend them to anyone.

First off Holmes-​Shusas really shows the attention to detail as soon as you walk in. from a running water fall with flowers and plants around it nicely done up. They have many varieties/​colors of roses to take care of any need. Checking out is quick easy and friendly. For those tech savvy you can book an order on their web site. If you need it delivered that’s another option.

My husband and I got married in 2007 in Worcester and Holmes-​Shusas was our absolute favorite vendor. I met with them because of their website and within about 2 minutes of meeting them I knew I wanted to work with them. We brought in a swatch of bridesmaid dress fabric, some pictures of bouquets and centerpieces that we liked, and after a short discussion Paul came out with a handful of single-​stem flowers that we handled and rearranged until we liked the combination of colors and flowers. He gave us a great suggestion of putting a few ivory roses in my bouquet, but not in the bridesmaids which made just the right amount of contrast between the bright color flowers and my wedding dress, and my bridesmaids dark purple dresses! Oh and we got to take the single stems we had chosen home with us, which I thought was a very nice touch. They let us borrow some columns to put flowers on during our ceremony since our ceremony was in a hall at our college. We forgot to take them with us after the ceremony to return them, but we called to let them know, and they said no problem and picked them up themselves. Also, they called me when my final payment was due, which made life a lot easier than having to remember myself. Oh, and my bouquets and centerpieces were beautiful! I highly recommend them!