Wedding flowers make up a significant part of your big day’s budget. By the time the celebration comes to an end, you may want to find a way to preserve these flowers. Bouquet preservation can bring back memories of all the good times you shared with your partner and loved ones.
Fortunately for brides all around the world, there’s more than one way to preserve a bouquet. You can work with professionals or get crafty at home to make sure your wedding bouquet preservation lasts long beyond your wedding day.
Successfully Preserving a Wedding Bouquet
If you want to preserve a wedding bouquet, you need to protect your flowers from three elements. Moisture — or the lack thereof — drives your flowers to wilt. Bacteria and bugs can see your flowers begin to rot. Finally, time reduces the vibrancy and size of your flowers.
To preserve a bouquet, you need tools or tactics that can mitigate the influence of these elements. These can include:
Preserving Flowers in Resin or Silica Gel
Both resin and silica gel allow you to preserve your bouquet in as close a state as it was on your wedding day as possible. These materials essentially prevent bacteria and weather effects from coming into contact with your bouquet. In turn, your bouquet should retain its color and structure for years to come.
That said, not everyone should invest in DIY resin or silica gel preservation. These materials can be dangerous to use without the appropriate materials on hand. If you’re concerned that you may not know how to use either resin or silica gel appropriately, consider reaching out to a professional for guidance.
Pressing Your Bouquet
When you think about preserving your wedding flowers, you likely think of pressing them. Pressing a bouquet allows you to draw the moisture out of the flowers. The flowers may lose some of their vibrancy, but they retain their general look and silhouette.
That said, you need space if you want successfully preserved wedding flowers. Your press will require both moisture-resistant paper and several heavy objects with which you can effectively crush your wedding flowers.
You can press your bouquet on your own or request that a professional take on the task for you.
Drying Your Bouquet
If you don’t want to press the moisture out of your bouquet, you can alternatively dry it. The best way to dry your bouquet is to hang it upside down in a low-humidity environment for several days and up to a week. You can dry your bouquet at home or work with a professional florist to preserve your flowers.
Investing in Unconventional Wedding Bouquets
Pressing and preserving your bouquet are both relatively traditional means of maintaining this wedding day keepsake. That said, there are other ways that you can remind yourself of the day you shared with your loved ones.
If you want to substitute live flowers for fake ones — ones made out of book pages, for example — you can preserve those materials alongside your dress. You can alternatively have an artist paint a portrait of your bouquet.
These options allow you to revisit your bouquet anytime you want to dive back into your wedding day memories. However, they also eliminate the stress that can otherwise come with keeping the weather, bugs, bacteria, and time away from a traditional bouquet.
Let’s Discuss How Your Bouquet Adds to Your Wedding Day
Your bouquet can serve as one of many physical favors that you bring home from your wedding. If you want to preserve your bouquet, you can work on your own or with local professionals to ensure that your flowers remain in as good condition as possible.
The team with Windows on the Water can make sure that your bouquet makes its way back to you by the time your wedding comes to an end. For more information about our venue and on-the-day wedding services, you can contact our office at (609) 208-9475.