So, your wedding is on the horizon! The bouquets are picked, corsages are counted, boutonnieres are matched to suit colors, table counts are complete. Other than trying to relax until your big day, there are just a *few* things left to consider, one of them being the AFTER – more specifically, what are you going to do with your wedding bouquet? 

We’ve had more than a few brides call us in a panic the Monday after their wedding to see if we can still do something with their bouquet, so we figured it may help a little if we gave you a few tips ahead of time to take the stress out of this! We’ll go into this more at the end of this post, but we do not offer bouquet preservation service here at Wildly Native.

We have made a list of ideas, thoughts and guidance on wedding bouquet preservation, for those who want a forever keepsake of their bouquet. From resin, to pressed and floating frames, coffee tables, ornaments… you name and it we have seen it!!

1. What do you envision for your florals with bouquet preservation? 

There are so many options out there it can be a little overwhelming for sure. Most start with drying or pressing them, but then how do you decide to turn those into a finished piece of art that you want to hang in your home? Especially since you only get one chance!  Certain flowers do better air drying, others prefer silica gel, and some will fade in color as well.  Read about some of our dried flower adventures in this blog post!

With pressed flowers, there are similar considerations with color, bulk of the florals (can it even be flattened?), and whether certain varieties press well.  So, take a deep breath, and go for a browse on Pinterest to see if you want a 3D piece in resin, a pressed bouquet wall frame, or maybe a few holiday ornaments made as keepsakes – the possibilities are endless and you can let your creativity loose!

2. Our biggest tip with bouquet preservation: WATER!

Regardless of what you choose to do – the biggest tip of all for the best results? Keep your bouquet in fresh clean water at all times when you don’t need it for pictures or a special moment. This includes AFTER the wedding too! There have been times where brides have returned a bouquet to us for pressing, completely out of water and drooping which makes it really hard to work with. Fresher flowers press better, are more vibrant and create a better product at the end of the process. This is a PRO tip with guidance on wedding bouquet preservation.

Kara’s flowers, shown below, still look great in their vase full of water even days after her wedding!

left photo: Heirloom Blooms Design before pressing; right photo: Chelsea Fluharty Photography

3. A big no-no; Frozen Flowers

Do NOT freeze them! This completely destroys the flowers. But do try to keep them cool – an August wedding bouquet left in a sunny spot won’t hold up for long out of water! Placing them into a deep freezer will do even more damage.

4. Want to try DIY?

Want to dry it yourself? Totally possible! Many times people will take their bouquet and just simply hang it upside down. You may want to do a trial first with some of the flowers to see how well they dry this way, but we find that overall most florals do well just hung up to dry. If you are looking for a specific end result, you may want to experiment first, or separate the blooms in your bouquet before hanging. Once it’s dried, you can always trim out any blooms that didn’t quite dry correctly! Check out our blog on dried flowers here!

5. Pressing

There are LOTS of options for pressing, so take some time to really understand how the process works with a few video tutorials, or by following some pressed floral artists online.

I can’t tell you how many failures, moldy papers, and just gross yucky flowers we have gone through to really understand the process – and to decide that it’s not for us! There are TONS of posts, TikToks, Youtubes and Pinterest links about how to do this…. Just trust us and do yourself the favor of practicing! We have our favorite varieties of flowers that press well (think single layer petals, already kind of flat like cosmos or pansies), but even we have a hard time with the thicker varieties popular with bridal florals.

6. Communication With Us

Whether you choose to DIY your floral preservation or hand it over to a professional, one of the last and most important tips we have for you is to let us know ahead of time!!  Knowing that certain flowers either dry or press better than others, we would do our best to work in those blooms that will last with you through the years. 

We can also set aside a few extra stems of the exact varieties that we used in your bouquet for you wedding bouquet preservation, that way there is some wiggle room built in for any oops moments!  Coordinating with the preservation artist that you choose is also an easy step for us – we want to make sure that it looks good, too!

7. So who ya gonna call?

Although we’re the ones telling you all about the fun of bouquet preservation, we don’t actually offer this service ourselves!!! It’s a very specific skill set, and although we love all things floral we just don’t have the space or time to add another service at the moment. So, we have some recommendations!

The most important thing is to plan ahead!!! You should be reaching out at least a few months ahead of time to make sure they can accommodate your wedding date, and have a plan in place for getting your flowers there in time.

• Heirloom Blooms Floral Preservation: Lauren does absolutely beautiful work!!! Check out how she turned Kara’s orange and blue bouquet of spring florals into a treasured keepsake and beautiful work of art:

• Wren & Olivia: Another one of our favorites, their work always turns out beautiful and we love working with another local Maryland business: