BBB warns against flower preservation business

The Better Business Bureau in St. Louis has advised customers to use caution if doing business with Cultivate Wildflower, a flower preservation company in Marionville. Consumers reported to BBB the company failed to deliver goods in a timely manner, produced substandard goods, failed to reach customers, and provided poor customer service.

Cultivate Wildflower has earned an “F” rating, the lowest on BBB’s scale due to the unanswered complaints. Complainants were recent brides who gave the business their wedding bouquets to preserve.

“A wedding is supposed to be one of the happiest days of your life, but this company has left some brides empty-handed,” said Pamela Hernandez, regional director for the Springfield BBB. “If it can’t do the work it was paid to do, it needs to provide refunds and return the flowers to their customers.”

BBB could not find any record of the business being registered with the Missouri Secretary of State. But according to a listing on Canva, the business has been operating since 2018. Cultivate Wildflower is owned and operated by Nicole Kackley.

Haylie Scherr of Chicago, who formerly lived in Branson, told the News-Leader she ordered two custom pieces from Cultivate Wildflower. Scherr entered a contract with Kackley in August 2022, but she says Kackley never actually signed the contract.

Scherr paid the company $1,150 for the two floral pieces to be preserved from her October 2022 wedding. She was supposed to receive her flowers by May 2023. But Scherr’s one-year anniversary has come and gone, and she still hasn’t received her items.

“I was just ghosted,” Scherr said. “We were only communicating through Instagram messaging because I wanted to see that she read my messages. And she would read it and then not respond.”

Scherr said she took to social