Was at first a little concerned when box opened and the tree seemed *really* frosted (edging very close to tacky), but as tree went up, and branches spread - I could see the frosting was concentrated on the tips, making the overall appearance closer to the one in the picture here. Also, at first there seemed to be a lot of space between branches, but each main branch is composed of a bunch of smaller branches that are individually wired and need to be separated from each other. Once this job is done, the tree really starts looking beautiful. Plug in the lights, and the tree goes from beautiful to spectacular.