02 Oct 5 Ways to preserve your wedding flowers

After all the painstaking planning and budgeting that goes into choosing your wedding flowers it can be a sad thought to have to say goodbye to your bouquet just a few days later. Some may think once the wedding is over that these gorgeous arrangements are done for, however with some creative thinking, your wedding flowers can live on!

Follow our 5 ways to preserve your wedding flowers to keep your blooms forever:

Before you decide what to do with your wedding flowers, it is a good idea to think about which options are most practical and suit your home.

Hang Dry

After the wedding, you can hang your flower arrangements upside down and let them air dry. Remove any plastic coverings, tape and for best results, separate them stem by stem. Find a dry, temperate area to dry such as a cupboard and allow a week or two to completely dry out. Once dry, you can place in a vase, decorate a wreath or add to a special display in your home as a forever keepsake.

Press your flowers

Choose the flowers you wish to press and separate into separate sections (you can even press the whole bouquet if you wish). Lay and arrange the flowers as you would like them to appear, on a piece of wax paper below and above the flower. Insert into a heavy book such as an old phone book or text book and leave for up to 10 days. Once pressed and dried, you can place in a special frame or have them professionally framed. Check out this YouTube video on pressing and framing your flowers yourself:

Dip flowers into wax

To extend your flowers shelf life for longer (not forever though!), you can dip your flowers into wax, to get an extra six+ months out of them. Melt down paraffin wax in a heavy based saucepan and let it cool slightly. Slowly and carefully dip the flower head into the wax until completely covered and remove immediately. Leave to dry in a safe space before bringing them back together in an arrangement.

Resin flowers

After drying and pressing your flowers, you can hand set them in clear resin, although you may want to practice first! Amazon sell DIY resin craft kits you can use to set your flowers in. Be sure the flowers are dried, as resin can make fresh flowers turn a strange colour. For step by step instructions, read this Resin Casting Tutorial here.   

Flower paperweights

Preserving a sample of your wedding flowers inside a beautiful glass orb makes a beautiful memento of your special day. Keep as a permanent display or use as a functional paperweight. For ideas and inspiration on wedding flower paperweights head to Pinterest!

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