After seeing the episode of The Lookout[1] about online flower services which contract out to local florists I decided to use the local florists directly. The gist of it was that the local flower shops will tend to give a more skimpy arrangement for online orders since they have to give a cut to the website.

If you're in NYC I highly recommend Starbright[2]. They have arrangements as nice or nicer than a fancy florist like Ovando, but the prices are way better.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/full-bloom-online-flow... [2] http://www.starbrightnyc.com/