Wedding Flower Preservation: How to Make Your Flowers Last
With beautiful wedding blooms being such a lovely highlight of everyone’s wedding day, it’s often quite hard to see them wilt away! For this reason, many couples choose to preserve their flowers to forever be reminded of their special day. There are many ways you can do this and we’ve listed 7 of the most popular options below.
Air dry by hanging upside down
A simple way to preserve your flowers is to hang them upside down and place them in a dry, mildly temperature cupboard. Ideally you want to do this by hanging the stems one by one, so that none of them dry slightly squished. Do this for around a week or so and once dry, you can pop them in a nice vase or make an arrangement using them.
Use silica gel
Silica gel is the best thing you can do to keep your flowers looking as close to how they did on the day. Despite the name, it isn’t actually a gel but instead a porous sand that absorbs the water and dries the flowers in a week. To do it, you need to create a base of silica gel in an airtight container and then gently place your flowers within it. Fill the container up to the top with silica gel, being careful with the flowers and then pop the lid on nice and securely, so that no mould or moisture can get in. Once the week is up, take the flowers out of the container and spray them with hairspray or an artists fixative spray.
Press the flowers
Another lovely way to preserve is through pressing the flowers and displaying them in a nice photo frame. You’ll need to spread the flowers individually out on wax paper, either in a particular arrangement or one by one. Be mindful that if you do an arrangement, there’s no going back as they’ll dry pressed together. Next place a sheet of wax paper on top and put it within a heavy large book. Once secure, place more heavy things on top of it, ideally just more books. Leave these to dry for around 7-10 days and then delicately peel them off and present how you wish.
Dip the flowers in wax
Whilst this isn’t a permanent way of preserving, one way to keep your flowers looking as similar to their original form is through dipping them in wax. This will last for up to 6 months and you can’t tell they’re real flowers from wax unless you touch them. To do this, pop paraffin wax in a saucepan and melt until it is smooth and even. Place the flowers one by one within the wax and quickly remove and hang them upside down. Once they’ve dried, they’re all good to go!
Preserve with epoxy resin
If you’d like to turn your flowers into a bit of an ornament, you can preserve with epoxy resin into a particular shape that you can either display or use as a paperweight. First things first, you’ll need to get a mould in the shape you’d like it to be in. This could be a circle, a square or a particular letter. Next you’ll need to fill the mould halfway with epoxy resin and then arrange your flowers delicately within it, bearing in mind the way they’re sitting is how they’ll be ‘frozen in time’. Fill to the top with the rest of the epoxy resin and leave to dry. Once completed, take it out of the mould and voilà - you have your final product!
Have a painting/illustration made
Another option, if perhaps your wedding flowers have already wilted or you fancy something more 2D, is to get someone who’s work you love to paint or illustrate your wedding bouquet. Not only will you gain a lovely piece of their artwork, you’ll always be reminded of your wedding day when you look at it. We tend to find the best place to find someone is on Etsy or Instagram, with many often offering this particular service already.
Have the flowers cut out of paper
A lovely way to preserve the memory of your wedding flowers is by having them cut out of paper, in either 2D or 3D format. Unless you’re crafty yourself, we recommend leaving this one to the professionals! You can either have them cut out of paper and layered within a frame to create a pretty paper cut effect, or you can have them made out of paper to appear 3D in style. That way you can then arrange them in a vase or on a wreath.
