Preserving your Perfect Day

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Perhaps one of the most important memories of your wedding day will be the beauty and design of your wedding flowers particularly the bride's bouquet. More often than not the beauty and expense of the bouquet is literally ‘tossed' away as a tradition. Now you can preserve your special bouquet in a number of ways. Quite often these days brides request a 'toss bouquet' to allow them to still follow tradition whilst hanging on to their main bouquet as a special keepsake.

There are many techniques available for keeping your bouquet as a lasting treasure ranging from pressing and framing to the complete preservation in a three dimensional form using freeze drying techniques and mounting in a glass container.

Mountings and the backing materials can be in several types and can be coordinated to match your wedding theme. There are also containers and frames available which use a special type of glass that greatly reduces the sun's harmful UVA rays and prevents fading and distortion of your flowers.

Ensuring you get the best results from your preserved bouquets requires a great deal of organisation. You will have to make arrangements to have it delivered to the preservation company as soon as possible after your wedding. Most companies will give advice on which is the best way to keep and transport your flowers before it reaches them and this may differ depending on what preservation technique is being used.

Other methods

You don’t have to involve the expense of having your bouquet preserved, you can always preserve flowers at home. This isn’t as difficult as it might seem with proper research and preparation there is no reason why you can’t preserve the flowers yourself.

It is worth bearing in mind that some home methods of flower preservation can take days or weeks to complete. Will you have the time to monitor the process yourself? Will you be able to begin the preservation process immediately after the wedding?

Use drying agents such as sand, silica gel or borax to preserve your own bouquet at home. The process involves covering each flower completely with the chosen substance to draw out moisture.

Create your own dried flower bouquet. This is perhaps the simplest preservation method to accomplish at home. Take the bouquet apart and hang the individual flowers to dry. Reassemble the bouquet. However, it is important to take care with the resulting brittle petals and stems.

Professional Choices

If you want a more professional finish and don’t have the time to preserve the bouquet yourself you can choose to have your bouquet professionally freeze-dried. This method ensures the resulting bouquet will look as realistic as possible. The elements of the bouquet are taken apart, freeze-dried where possible, and then put back into the original arrangement. This method will take three to four weeks to complete.

Choose to have your bouquet professionally pressed. The bouquet is taken apart, the flowers are pressed, and then they are rearranged and framed. Even though the flowers will be flattened, the original silhouette of the bouquet can be achieved. Be patient though as this method can take up to ten weeks.