Preserving your wedding flowers is an essential part of keeping your cherished memories alive. This guide is the second of a two part series on Preserving Wedding Flowers. In part one, we explored the right time to preserve wedding flowers and the types of wedding flowers that are best to preserve. Here, in part two, we provide you with tips on how to preserve your wedding flowers.
1. Best Practices for Air-Drying Flowers
Air-drying is one of the most common methods of preserving wedding flowers. This process involves hanging the flowers upside down in a dry, dark, and well-ventilated space. The flowers should be hung with their stems tied together and placed in a warm, dry area away from direct sunlight. This process can take anywhere from one to three weeks, depending on the type of flower.
Walden Floral Design Pro Tip
When drying the wedding flowers yourself, handle them with extra care. The dried stems will become brittle and fragile.
2. Preserve Wedding Flowers with Silica Gel
Silica gel absorbs moisture from the environment, making it an ideal solution for preserving flowers. This process involves burying the flowers in a container of silica gel, ensuring that the flowers are completely covered. The container should be sealed, and the flowers left to dry for a few days to a week. Once the flowers are dry, carefully remove them from the silica gel, and they will be preserved.
3. Paperweight Resin
You can use clear epoxy resin to preserve your flowers in decorative shapes. To make a resin paperweight, purchase a mold from the local craft store in whatever shape you want; circle, oval, square and rectangle are some of the easier shapes to work with.
Fill the mold halfway with the epoxy resin.
Carefully arrange the flowers in the resin.
Now, fill additional resin to the top of the mold.
Let the resin dry.
After you take the mold off, you'll have a gorgeous decoration that will keep your wedding bouquet in bloom forever.
If this sounds like a project you'd rather not undertake, consider sending your wedding blooms to an artist. Etsy is a great resource to find an artisan skilled in preserving wedding flowers in paperweight resin.
4. Pressing Wedding Flowers for Preservation
Pressing flowers is a traditional method of preserving flowers that has been used for centuries. This process involves placing the flowers between two sheets of absorbent paper and then placing a heavy object on top of the paper. The flowers should be left to dry for several weeks, and once they are dry, they can be used for various crafts, including scrapbooking and making decorative art.
Once you pressed your flowers, you will want to display them in the best possible way. One of the most popular ways to display pressed flowers is by placing them in a shadow box or frame. This will protect the flowers from dust, and they will remain intact for years to come.