Flowers are a big part of many weddings, and many couples like to preserve their blooms to look back on after the celebrations are over. They make for such a beautiful memento of the occasion to be treasured for a lifetime.

Before you even think about preserving your bouquet you may wish to discuss with your florist that you may like to preserve your bouquet in some way after your day. Whether this is to preserve yourself or by outsourcing to a professional flower preservation service. Certain flowers will perform very differently depending on the type of service you’re looking for. For example some flower are much easier to dry at home than others, some flowers are much easier to press. And some flowers do not respond particularly well to preservation.

Preserve Your Own Wedding Flowers

1. Pressing Wedding Flowers

Pressing is a nice easy way to preserve your flowers. Although they won’t preserve their original shape they have a new charm to them.

You can place individual heads of your blooms in a flower press or in-between some big heavy books to press.

Thinner or flatter flowers respond best to this process. Thick marshmallowy blooms have high moisture content so will more than likely go brown or even mouldy in the middle so avoid peonies or garden roses but daintier florals work beautifully. Try plucking off individual petals off bigger flowers to get around this. Flowers with multiple individual flowers like hydrangea or delphinium for example, it’s worth plucking off the individual flowers. Play around with putting some on their side and some face down for a multidimensional look. You can go on to frame these, put them in a memory book, a phone case as a few examples, or get creative with some decoupaging.

2. Drying Wedding Flowers

The easiest method of drying your wedding flowers simply hang them upside down from some string in a dry dark spot in your home. You can hang your bouquet as one but depending on the size of your bouquet you may find it’ll dry much better if you take it apart and group it in smaller bunches. This will obviously mean you will no longer have the exact design of your bouquet but it’s likely to give you much better results with less chance of a mouldy middle!

You can also look into buying silica crystals for drying flowers which you can get from many hobby shops to dry the flowers - you won’t keep long stems with this method and you generally submerge only the heads but it gives stunning colour results! This is great for craft with framing the flowers or with resin.

It’s important to remember that your flowers will change in the drying process. Although drying them in the dark will preserve their colour as much as possible, they often become darker or duller in colour. Bright colours tend to respond best, although slightly muted. Whites are difficult to dry with out some browning. Flowers will also change shape and shrink and shrivel.

3. Grow them in your garden

The lesser done, less traditional approach but an idea I just love! There’s so many varieties that you can grow in your garden to enjoy year after year!

Flowers that come from bulbs or tubers are often the easiest and most fuss free, similarly shrubs too - tulips, narcissi, hyacinths, anemone in spring. In summer hydrangea, dahlias and roses will bring almost never ending joy to your garden and in winter hellebores and winter flowering shrubs are the perfect touch.

This option is the perfect choice for flowers that don’t respond well to drying - big blooming garden roses and peonies, or branches of sweet scented lilac. Some blooms might require some effort year after year. For example annuals only flower for one year so you’d need to plant these seeds each year. A fun yearly project to undertake if you enjoy gardening. You’ll be well rewarded for your efforts, with endless vases of blooms to enjoy in your home reminiscent of your wedding flowers.

If this is an approach you’d like to take you can chat to your florist or a gardener to identify the varieties and how their grown so you can choose the elements you want for your garden.

Professional Wedding Flower Preservation

1. Wedding Flower Preservation Services

There are many services offering professional flower preservation for truly amazing results. Your florals will be professionally preserved with care and attention for the best possible results to maintain colour and shape.

Depending on the service provider you choose and the look or results you’re after there are many options. You could choose a provider who dries your florals maintaining the 3D look of your flowers. These are often framed or suspended in resin which make for a fantastic keepsake. Or you could find someone who will professionally press your flowers to frame as a piece of art, like these stunning frames from Fields of Pressed Flowers. There are many options worth looking into.

- Image from Fields of Pressed Flowers - Pressed Flower Preserver

2. Wedding Flower Artwork

Another option is not to try and preserve the actual flowers themselves, rather opt for a hand drawn display. Whether it’s an oil on canvas, a digital drawing, or a stunning watercolour piece like this from Dewinton Paper Co. Whether it’s realist, abstract or illustrative, artists can create a beautiful rendition of your bouquet or your favourite arrangement from your day.

What to do when it didn’t quite work

So you already tried to preserve your own flowers and it didn’t quite work out the way you wanted? Don’t despair! You’re probably disappointed that some elements worked better than others. Maybe you have a few little bits that worked out but not enough to do what you had in mind. Perhaps your roses went brown but there’s still some colour on some of the petals. Maybe some of your larger blooms went a bit squishy in the flower press but the littler ones look ok. How about turning what you’ve got into confetti? Get some clear glass baubles and put them inside to create confetti baubles. Bring these out year after year at Christmas time as a lovely reminder of your special day.

The other option is getting your bouquet replicated by your florist purely for the purposes of professional preservation if you didn’t act quick enough first time round. This will ensure your blooms reach them in peak condition and give you the best possible results.

Hopefully you feel suitably inspired and ready to look into the various options. Regardless of which option you go for preparation is key! With all flower preservation it’s best to act as quickly as possible to capture the flowers in their prime as much as possible. This might involve posting them off to a preserver the day after your wedding or perhaps getting them hanging to dry somewhere as soon as you can.

Whatever momento you go for it will be a wonderful reminder of your special day and something to treasure forever.