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How to Preserve Your Wedding Bouquet

The bridal bouquet, a beautiful, unique and expensive element of the wedding, is often preserved to create a wedding day keepsake. If you decide to preserve your bouquet, you can choose to do-it-yourself at home or hire a professional. Since the flowers are delicate and start to fade soon after wedding day, you’ll need to act quickly to capture the blooms at their best. Here are some helpful tips for preserving your wedding bouquet.

1. When creating your wedding budget, include the cost of preserving the bridal bouquet. Although not the most expensive service, prices range from $100 to $800 or more, depending on the products or vendor you choose. If the cost of preservation is built into the wedding budget, you can avoid any surprise expenses after the wedding and you won’t forgo creating a special keepsake simply because of the added expense.

2. At least a month before the wedding, make a decision about whether you would like to hire a professional to preserve your bouquet or if you will do it yourself. When you are deciding, take into consideration the time you can devote to the task and the display you would like. Preserving the flowers, although not a time-consuming process, requires attention and care and can take up to eight weeks to complete.3. If you are leaving for the honeymoon immediately after the wedding, you need to determine if you will be able to start the process of preserving the bouquet immediately. If you can’t, you will have to delegate the task to someone reliable, but you may be better off choosing a professional vendor. Professionals, in addition to having expertise in the various preservation techniques, will provide the packaging and shipping materials needed to keep the bouquet fresh and undamaged during transport. All you would need to do is prepare the bouquet for shipping and drop it off, or arrange to have someone do it for you.

4. If you will do it yourself, choose the method you believe will be feasible for you to accomplish to achieve a professional-quality result. Gather the products and containers you will need to allow you to start immediately after the wedding. There are four common methods for preserving at home: sand, borax, hanging and pressing. You’ll need to take the bouquet apart and recreate it after the flowers are preserved, unless you use them in another arrangement.

For the sand and borax methods, you’ll need containers large enough to immerse the flowers and greens from the bouquet and you will need to purchase a quantity of product sufficient to do the job.

If you hang-dry the flowers, you will simply hang the flowers upside down in a cool, dark location. You could also use the simplest method: pressing. You can easily press some of the blooms and greens in a heavy book between sheets of wax paper. After a few weeks, they will be ready to use.

5. If you choose to hire a professional, research the various display options and methods of preservation they offer. There are myriad options to choose from when considering preservation of the bouquet, from shadow boxes to press and frame creations to glass dome displays to jewelry and some vendors can even make rosaries.

Professionals typically use either silica gel or freeze-drying to preserve the bouquet. The difference between the techniques is that silica gel requires immersion into the silica gel to totally dry the blossoms, while freeze-drying involves dehydrating the blooms slowly in a machine. Freeze-drying creates the most natural-looking result.

Professionals also use the pressing method, which requires removing either whole flowers or petals and greens from the bouquet and drying them under pressure. The materials can be artfully arranged along with pictures and a wedding invitation for a simple framed piece that is the least expensive option.

Whether you do it yourself or hire a professional, preserving the wedding bouquet creates a beautiful keepsake that will be a lasting reminder of your wedding day. Since you only have one wedding bouquet, make certain you plan accordingly and choose the option that works best for you and your budget.