Once your wedding is over, what do you do with your wedding flowers? Some couples give the flowers away to guests, some couples arrange for them to be donated to a rest home or cemetery. It can be tricky to know what to do, especially when you’re rushing off to your honeymoon after the wedding day. After all, you might not want to see your wedding flowers go to waste. Maybe you’ve spent so much time (and money) planning for your dream wedding flowers that you don’t want to let them go so easily. If this is the case for you and you have a little bit of creativity, you have come to the right place. You can use a number of different approaches to transform your wedding flowers into pieces of home decor that will last forever and remind you of your big, special day. Here are a few of our favourite preservation techniques.
Create a Framed Bouquet
One of the newest trends in wedding flower preservation is to press and frame your wedding flowers. To create this look, you simply need to use a floral press (or a few heavy, sturdy books) to flatten and dry out your wedding flowers. You can then create a beautiful, framed piece of art with your pressed flowers. You can even recreate the shape and layout of your bouquet with your dried, flattened flowers. Simply glue or adhere your flowers to a firm backdrop and add a beautiful frame of your choice. You’ll love to hang up your dried, pressed flowers in your home!
Use a Shadow Box
You can also preserve your wedding flowers using a shadow box. A shadow box is a deeper type of frame that gives a few inches of space for objects to be placed inside. You’ll want to dry your flowers by hanging them upside down before you place them in the shadow box. This will help to prevent any mould from developing. Once your flowers are dried, you can carefully place them into the shadow box in a shape or arrangement. You can also fill up the shadow box with dried flowers and put one of your wedding photos or a cute quote in front of the flowers. This is one of the easiest DIY projects that will create a cute piece of home decor from your wedding flowers.
Dip Your Flowers in Wax
If you want to keep your fresh flowers looking more realistic, consider dipping them in wax. Wax-coated flowers almost look like they’re frozen in time. Their colours and shapes are well-preserved, especially if you dip your flowers right after the wedding day. Paraffin and soy wax are the most popularly used types of wax that will immortalize your wedding flowers. You can even make this craft into a group activity and dip your bridesmaid flowers together as well. Then, all of your flowers will be preserved in beautiful, matching condition. While your flowers are still fresh and full, dip them in the warm, melted wax of your choice. Just make sure you have sufficient space to let your flowers dry well after being dipped.
Make Resin Art
You can also preserve your wedding flowers with resin, which makes your flowers look like they’re frozen in crystal or glass. Once you’re more accustomed to using resin, you’ll be able to create all sorts of different art with your wedding flowers. For example, you could make a resin frame, bookends, a paperweight, a ring holder, a jewellery tray, coasters, bookmarks, and much more. Some resin artists create phone cases that capture special details such as polaroids, ribbons, and flowers. You could even make delicate jewellery such as pendants or rings with little bits of your wedding flowers in them. When you’re working with resin art, just make sure that you use protective gear such as goggles, gloves, thick clothing, and more.
Hang Your Flowers to Dry
Once your flowers are dried, you can display them in a variety of ways. If you have a boho style and you like the sight of your carefully hung flowers, that can become a piece of wall art in and of itself. You can also take your dried flowers down and arrange them in a bouquet that can be laid on a shelf or displayed in a pretty vase. You can even display your dried flowers in a large, glass bowl as a unique (and easy) centerpiece. Sure, dried flowers might not be as vibrant and colourful as they once were when they were fresh, but they can still bring back beautiful memories of your wedding day. Those preserved flowers will have a lot of sentimental value for you and your spouse for years to come.
Use Wood Flowers
When you use wood flowers for your wedding bouquet, you won’t have to worry about drying, pressing, or coating your wedding flowers before they wilt and die. Instead, your wood flowers will last forever and look just as bright and beautiful as they did on your wedding day. Wood flowers are made out of natural wood-like materials that are carefully dried, preserved, and hand-formed until they look like real flowers. Then, wood flowers can be dyed to match any unique wedding colour scheme. Once your wedding is over, you can reuse your wood flowers to create pieces of home decor. Some wood flower wedding vendors, such as Sola Wood Flowers, can even provide you with floral supplies or craft kits that will help you to transform your wedding flowers into timeless and trendy pieces of home decor. Here are just a few ideas for the pieces of decor that you could make with your wood wedding flowers:
- Wood Flower Wreath
- Wood Flower Wall Hanging
- Wood Flower Frame (and put a print of your wedding pictures inside!)
- Wood Flower Centerpiece
- Wood Flower Napkin Rings
- Wood Flower Lanterns
- Wood Flower Wall Backdrop
- Wood Flower Monogram Lettering or Word Sign
