Creative and Easy Ways to Preserve Your Wedding Bouquet
You walk away from your wedding with so many memories and keepsakes. One to not forget: your wedding bouquet. You spent time and money picking out your flowers and they add an incomparable element to your wedding, so you should get the most out of your wedding flowers. Preserving your wedding bouquet or floral arrangements is a great and creative way to incorporate the liveliness of your wedding day into everyday areas of your life.
Preserving flowers and arrangements of any type will be a very delicate process. The main thing to remember is this: be gentle. You don’t want to mishandle the flowers and tear the petals or harshly break the steams. Take your time. Think about which option works best for you and if you would like to hire a professional, there are plenty of artists who do flower preservation. As a luxury wedding florist in Richmond, Virginia, we have many recommendations for local flower preservation artists. However, if you prefer the DIY method, coming up with a plan beforehand can help you preserve your wedding bouquet while it’s fresh and minimize mistakes or mishaps. Unfortunately, you only have one shot at preserving your flowers.
Here are some creative ways to preserve your wedding bouquet.
Pressing Flowers
A very old tradition, pressing flowers is an easy way to preserve your flowers without any help. To begin, you would take your wedding bouquet apart and separate the stems from each other.
Trim the stems of your arrangement carefully and find a large, heavy book that does not have glossy pages. Open the book and lay a sheet of wax paper on the pages. Lay the flowers on the wax paper as desired, being mindful of the seams of the book and the moving wax paper. After your flowers are arranged, add another sheet of wax paper on top of the flowers and gently close the book. Find another book, vase, or heavy object and sit it on top of the book to weigh it down thus deeply “pressing” the flowers. Wait about seven to 10 days for the flowers to fully dry before taking them out.
No peeking! It’s essential that you wait the full duration of the process before removing any. of the books or weights off the book. Once completed, flowers can be transferred to a photo frame or placed in a shadow box for long term storage. They can also be used with resin to create a number of unique decorative pieces.
Hanging Flowers
Another tradition from long ago, hanging your flowers is essentially letting them dry upside down. This works well with pretty much any kind of foliage, herb, and most flowers. Hanging your flowers will cause them to lose their vibrancy and will make them incredibly fragile.
To get started, if your stems aren’t already bound together tightly, make sure you do so. Another option is to hang your flowers separately. This protects the stems and shortens the drying time. Find a well- ventilated area of your home that doesn’t get direct sunlight and isn’t a high traffic area (e.g., a closet, walk in pantry, etc). Run a line —you can use string or even a hanger —from one wall to the other and tie the stems to the line upside down. It takes about two to three weeks for your flowers to completely dry.
When the process is complete, delicately remove the flowers from the line and carefully store them with your other keepsakes from the day.
Silica Gel
This technique will best preserve the freshness of your flowers. It keeps your flowers looking as close to how they did on your wedding day as possible and is best for preserving thicker flowers such as roses or anemones. Silica gel can be purchased at your local craft store.
After separating and trimming your stems to size, cover the base of an airtight, plastic, container, with a few centimeters of silica gel. Gently and delicately insert the flowers that you wish to preserve. Very slowly and carefully fill the container to the top with the remaining silica gel or until the flowers are completely covered, at least three inches of gel from the top of the tallest flower. Seal the container with the lid and gently rotate and tilt the glass until the gel works its way in between and around every part of every flower. Set the container aside for seven to ten days. After gently removing the flowers, spray them with an artist fixative spray or hairspray to seal the gel and keep moisture out.
Flowers preserved in silica gel can decorate shadowboxes or become ornamental pieces of decor.
Resin
Resin is a great, artistic way to turn your wedding flowers into separate and numerous different pieces of beautiful and useful art. Using resin allows the possibility for your wedding bouquet to become bookends, a jewelry tray, a paperweight, and so many other things. The possibilities are endless.
The process is very similar to if you were using silica gel; however, for resin, you would have to purchase a mold to pour the resin into. After trimming the stems of your flowers and selecting the ones you would like to use for this particular project, fill the mold anywhere between a third and half of the way with resin. Then, carefully and delicately place and arrange the flowers in the fluid. Keep in mind the orientation of the mold - you want the flowers to be right side up when you are finished. Fill the mold all the way to the top with the remaining resin and let it dry for seven to 10 days.
If you’re not interested in preserving your flowers yourself but would like your wedding bouquet turned into a keepsake, artists and professionals offering either of these services are easy to find on Etsy or even Instagram. Thoroughly read through their policies and customers reviews, as well as go through their catalog of work to make sure you’re working with a trustworthy professional before sending them your precious wedding bouquet.
Also, keep in mind that you only have a certain amount of time to preserve your flowers and you want to do it at their freshest. Hiring a professional local to Richmond, Virginia or Charlottesville, Virginia can help you save time and ensure that you properly preserve your bouquet how you planned to. Besides, coming home from your honeymoon to a beautiful floral keepsake is the perfect way to start your wedded life together.
Cheers.
