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Do you know yet what you will do with your wedding flower bouquet after your elopement? Don’t wait until after your wedding to think of what to do with your bouquets.
Packing your precious bouquet in your baggage could damage it and ruin an otherwise beautiful keepsake. When it comes to bouquet preservation, it’s best to be prepared early.
Here are seven popular ways to keep your bouquet flowers last forever!
Air Dry
Pressing
Silica Gel Dip
Resin
Wax Dip
Freeze Dry
Artist Rendition
1. Air Dry
One of the easiest and most convenient ways to preserve your floral wedding bouquet is by simply hanging it to dry. This method is perfect if you want to retain the shape and color of your flowers.
You will need to hang the bouquet or individual flowers upside down in a safe area away from the sun to preserve its colors.
The air-drying method takes about two to three weeks, so it is more time-consuming.
Afterward, experts suggest spraying the dried flowers with unscented hair spray to preserve them for longer.
After air-drying your bouquet, you could use it in a variety of crafts. For example, you could enclose the bouquet in a terrarium or in a shadowbox frame and display it in your home.
2. Pressing
Pressing flowers is another classic, simple way of preserving blooms.
Simply slip the flowers in sheets of paper then press them between a heavy book or use a traditional flower press.
Pressed flowers are quite versatile. You can reconstruct your bouquet and frame it or turn it into a new piece of art.
You could even include some keepsakes from your wedding and surround them with the pressed bouquet in a frame.
There are a number of artists who press and frame wedding bouquets, like White Poppy Presses or Sincerely Sage Jo.
3. Silica Gel Dip
Silica gel is a desiccant, which means it absorbs moisture and acts as a drying agent. It’s commonly used in new bags and shoes, but it can also be used for wedding bouquet preservation.
Silica gel dip accelerates the drying process of flowers while also better preserving their form and color.
Instead of waiting for weeks for your flowers to dry, you only need to dry your flowers for two to seven days, depending on their moisture level.
Silica gel-dipped flowers look like fresh flowers, you can’t even tell they were dried.
As with the first two methods listed, you can arrange the flowers and frame them or cast them in resin.
4. Resin
Resin is another unique way to preserve beautiful flowers forever. It’s a type of plastic that can be molded into any shape and it can be used to encase various items, the most popular of which are flowers, and then displayed.
To preserve floral arrangements in resin, you will need to dry the flowers first using either the air-drying method, pressing or the silica gel dip.
A little caveat: Although easy, working with resin requires some skills and equipment. We suggest reading up or watching a handful of tutorials or, better yet, hiring an expert who specializes in resin preservation so you don’t hurt yourself or ruin your beautiful bouquet.
The folks at Glass House Collection make various types of wedding bouquet resin products.
Our friends at Little Lo Floral, led by Brittany Lo create dried flower resin blocks, which are perfect for preserving and showcasing your flowers.
We sat down with Brittany on our podcast so you can learn more about this method for preserving bouquets in resin.
5. Wax Dip
Wax dipping is a traditional Southern method of preserving flowers. Wax has been trusted to preserve specimens, so dipping flowers in wax prolongs their life.
Wax dipping preserves the color and shape of the flowers while adding a light sheen to each petal.
These preserved flowers can then be displayed in a vase or enclosed in a terrarium or a shadow box frame.
6. Freeze Dry
The process of freeze-drying flowers works by extracting the moisture from the flowers then flash-freezing them in a freeze drier.
This process takes about six to eight weeks but it’s worth it because it essentially freezes the flowers in full bloom, retaining their original shape and color.
Freeze-dried flowers are perfect for framing and any other crafts for decoration.
Freeze-drying requires a freeze drier, which is a big and expensive piece of equipment. So, if you want to go for this wedding bouquet preservation method, you will likely need to hire someone, like Infinity Bouquet.
7. Artist Rendition
Newlyweds who have a penchant for art may opt for a visual rendition of their bouquet.
For an extra touch, artistic individuals may choose to paint a portrait of the flower arrangement themselves and then have it framed.
If, however, the couple prefers a professional to paint their bouquet, there are myriad artists they can commission to do so.
Some artists specialize in painting wedding bouquets, such as Keepsake Blooms Co., who create watercolor portraits of bouquets, and Jaclyn Marie Prints, who creates digital gouache-style portraits of flowers. Couples can choose an art style that suits their personal tastes.
Be sure to check out our wedding master checklist to make sure you don’t forget anything for your wedding!
McKenzi Taylor is America’s go-to elopement and micro wedding expert, often featured in small and major media outlets, such as the New York Times. With over 15 years of wedding photography experience, it was after planning her own Las Vegas elopement in 2016 that McKenzi felt her purpose shift into elopement coordination. She started Cactus Collective Weddings soon after in 2017. Since then, she’s become a WIPA board member, and has helped well over 1000 couples get hitched in style around Las Vegas, San Diego and Black Hills.
