Ways To Preserve A Bridal Bouquet
There are several different ways to preserve your bouquet, and it all depends on your own personal tastes and what you think will look best in your home. Different preservation methods have different looks, so this is another way your personal style gets to run free in your wedding.
Some are also more DIY than others, so youll have to determine your own handiness and artistic ability. You only have a handful of flowers, so try not to be too ambitious. You dont want to end up preserving them incorrectly and then not having any more.
Keep reading for several ways to preserve your wedding flowers.
Hang Them Upside Down To Air Dry
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This is the traditional way to dry your wedding flowers. Its incredibly simple: just tie the stems tightly together and hang them upside down for a few weeks in a dry, warm place like in an airing cupboard or over a radiator.
Drying them in the dark will preserve their colour and scent as much as possible, but the downside to this method is that your blooms are likely to become muted or darker in colour.
When Is The Best Time Of Year/season/day For This Project
The epoxy resin can be applied any time, but its important that you do so when the weather and humidity levels in your area are fairly consistent, otherwise, moisture might cause damage to your flowers.
Also keep in mind that epoxy resin starts to dry very quickly, so its best if you can complete the entire process in one day.
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Can You Embed Fresh Flowers In Resin
Yes! Embedding flowers in resin is a great way to preserve your wedding bouquet, but you have to choose a different epoxy for the flowers.
To embed fresh wedding flowers in resin, use Pro-Weave Knot Easy instead of ArtResin Traditional Resin with Hardener.
The knot easy is specifically formulated to hold floral foam and even water! This makes it perfect for preserving your wedding bouquet without letting the stems soak up too much resin.
Simply place some flower food on top of your floral foam or water tube before placing each individual rose petal into the mixture, this will not only preserve them longer, but theyll look beautiful when finished because all of their natural curves are preserved by stopping any curling that would otherwise occur while drying.
How To Keep Your Wedding Flowers Fresh All Day
ByGrady Savage on Apr 03, 2018
Floral arrangements and wedding bouquets are an absolutely key aspect of many weddings, but how can you make sure that your event has flowers that look stunning all day? Especially with the rise in outdoor weddings, it can be tricky to know what to do to keep your blooms fresh! Here are some ideas that will help you have beautiful flowers all day long.
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Dried Wedding Bouquet Display
Make the most of your air-dried wedding bouquet with a gorgeous layered display that will last for years to come.
Jalynn Baker
If you’d rather go the easy route, this parfait of pretty is the right choice for you. And if you are one of the millions of brides who air-dried her bouquet only to wonder what to do now, this gorgeous display may be the answer to your prayers.
Tips For Preparing And Storing Diy Wedding Flowers
If you plan on doing your own wedding flowers, proper flower prep is essential! Caring for your flowers correctly from the beginning will extend their vase life and keep them looking great for your wedding. Weve put together the essential steps to follow when prepping your flowers, courtesy of sponsor and bulk online floral supplier, Blooms by the Box.
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How To Preserve Your Wedding Bouquet With Wax
To preserve your wedding flowers using wax, you will need:
- A drying rack
- Soy wax
- A vase large enough that you can dip your flower without disrupting any blooms and deep enough to cover the stems length
- A wax-heating method, such as a microwave or stovetop
- Your wedding bouquet
You can find soy wax at your local craft store. Soy wax works best because it gives your flowers a shiny, flexible appearance. To melt your soy wax easily, buy it flaked. Flaked wax can melt in the microwave in a few minutes, while whole wax requires melting via stovetop, which takes much longer.
Achieving a perfectly waxed flower takes practice. Before using your wedding bouquet flowers, consider practicing with grocery store flowers. Perfectly dip your wedding flowers with the following steps:
How To Preserve Flowers: 8 Ways To Save Your Wedding Bouquet
Preserve your wedding flowers and create beautiful mementos with these flower preservation techniques.
There are a few things that stand out in your wedding memoriesthe first look, the food, the I dos, and of course, the bouquet. Wedding flowers are a favorite tradition thats remained relatively untouched as a natural choice for romantic decor and beautiful centerpieces. Whether you choose an elaborate floral arrangement or local wildflowers, theres something sentimental about your wedding bouquet, so youll want to know how to preserve flowers.
Wedding flowers incorporate so much of your wedding into one beautiful arrangement. Perhaps you chose bold California Poppies as the attention piece in your bouquetthe perfect spring bloom for your April wedding in Southern California. Of course, they were yellow with lots of greenery and matched your color palette for an outdoor wedding in the sunshine. Theyre a perfect reminder of your big day.
The reality is, if you choose natural flowers for your ceremony, they wont live forever. That doesnt mean there arent ways you can keep them longer and incorporate them into your life as a beautiful wedding keepsake. Here are eight ways you can preserve your flowers and creative ideas to display your bouquet as home decor.
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Turn Them Into A Paperweight
Image: The Flower Preservation Workshop
The Flower Preservation Workshop turn your bouquet and flowers into amazing floral paperweights if youd love to have one as a keepsake. Specialising in 3D flower preservation, your blooms are freeze-dried to keep their colour and shape, before being turned into a paperweight by their team of designers. As 100% of the moisture is removed, your flowers will stay looking perfect forever.
They can accept bouquets at their Somerset workshop for up to 10 days after the wedding, but the fresher the better. The team provide full instructions for packaging and sending your flowers and you can do it via Royal Mail so its a completely easy process.
Image: The Flower Preservation Workshop
It depends on the flower, but turning your flowers into a paperweight normally takes 6-8 weeks from start to finish and then youre left with a stunning, unique keepsake.
You can even preserve the confetti from your wedding as a keepsake, which could make an amazing gift for your partner, as paper is the recommended 1st wedding anniversary present.
Their single flower paperweights cost £169.99, while a multi-flower paperweight starts from £229.99 depending on size.
Find A Local Or Online Vendor
Start by asking your wedding florist if they are able to preserve your wedding flowers, or if they know of a local vendor who can. If nobody is available locally, each of the links below have been recommended for various types of flower preservation techniques. Keep in mind youll want to decide which vendor youll want to go with and start the order forms at least two weeks prior to your wedding day.
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How To Preserve Wedding Flowers Using Glycerin
To preserve your wedding flowers using glycerin, you will need:
- Glycerin
- Your wedding bouquet
- A room away from sunlight, like a closet
You can likely find glycerin at your local craft store. Both tap water and distilled water work well for this process, and the amount needed will vary depending on how many flowers you are treating. The golden ratio is two parts water to one part glycerin.
Glycerin-treat your wedding flowers with these steps:
Where I Went Wrong With My Bouquet Preservation
I didnt have a plan for preserving my bouquet, so after it dried out a bit, I tried pressing some flowers. I wanted to try and enjoy my bouquet for as long as possible so I kept it in water, which perhaps wasnt the best move on my part!
I missed the opportunity to really think about how to keep my flowers and I dont want this for you. This is why I have created this guide on how to preserve your wedding bouquet.
Photo of my bouquet by Alexa Loy
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Wedding Bouquet Preservation Prep
If youre planning to preserve your wedding bouquet, we recommend skipping the bouquet toss or swapping it for a dummy bouquet instead. Using a wrapping paper/ribbon bouquet from your wedding shower, a paper bouquet, or a mini replica of your bouquet from the florist will prevent your actual bouquet from getting damaged and broken.
Depending on the type of flowers used, your bouquet can start to wilt or look a little lackluster a few days after your wedding. Keep in mind that by the time you get the bouquet on your wedding day, there’s a good chance that flowers have been cut for at least a couple of days, if not a week or longer. Most florists rely on flowers from all across the countryand sometimes the worldto create their designs, which means that your blooms have already traveled quite the distance to be part of your special day. For locally grown flowers, you might luck out with a little extra time to preserve your wedding bouquet, since they can be harvested more closely to your wedding date, but youll still need to act quickly.
Skip The Bouquet Toss
Once you decide which method of wedding bouquet preservation works for you and your budget, youll want to be extra careful with it once your wedding day rolls around. If you plan on preserving your wedding bouquet, youll want to make sure it doesnt get damaged. So, in lieu of using it for the bouquet toss, use a less expensive bouquet of flowers to symbolically throw instead.
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Make A Painting Of Your Wedding Bouquet
The final DIY wedding flower preservation approach is painting your wedding bouquet. This is the perfect fun way to get in touch with your artistic side and have a permanent reminder of your gorgeous blooms. You and your partner can grab a canvas and create pieces that fit your individual styles using any medium, like charcoal, watercolor or acrylic. Find a lovely frame to match your artwork and showcase it in your home for your loved ones to see. If you love this idea but don’t want to take on the task yourself, you can outsource the job to a professional wedding painter or other artists.
Tips On How To Preserve Wedding Bouquet
The hardest part about preserving your wedding bouquet is that it needs to start when they are fresh, which means that most brides are on their honeymoons. We recommend asking a trusted bridesmaid a few weeks before the wedding if they would get it started for you. Make sure that you discuss the process enough that they feel confident enough to do it. Also, if you are getting them professionally preserved, make sure you have contacted the company and have made a reservation about a month before the wedding. If it needs to be delivered, it is best that it is in a cool container.
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How To Dry Wedding Flowers To Keep Them Forever
Whether you decide to Do-It-Yourself or have your flowers preserved professionally, always ensure that they are placed in water as soon as possible, after the wedding ceremony, pop up picnic or professional photos. Ask your florist to provide a pretty vase and display them on your card table or elsewhere in the venue. Ensuring the flowers have as much hydration as possible will enable the flowers to be dried at their best and therefore preserve their beauty.
The best areas to dry wedding flowers are either in a dark cool cupboard, a garage , or a garden shed which is mostly dark inside when the door is shut. Always make sure whilst the flowers are drying that they are kept away from direct sunlight, otherwise the light bleaches the colour of the flowers.
Here are various techniques to help you with your wedding flower preservation. Most people will be able to find success with a DIY approach to this, but you could also consider looking for an expert if youd like to get the best results.
Here are various techniques to dry wedding flowers with a DIY approach it is a simple and easy project anyone can try.
