DIY Project - Preserving your Bridal Bouquet

Many of my brides, even if they are on a tight budget, spend a good chunk of moola on their personal bridal bouquet - with good reason! Since you will be holding your bridal bouquet in many of the pictures taken on your wedding day (usually couple portraits, bridal party/family portraits and much of the ceremony shots), consider it a very important accessory... maybe just as important as your shoes! And like your shoes, there are ways that you can "keep" your bouquet for years to come, as a special keepsake from your special day.

With my bridal bouquet, I chose to press some flower petals to showcase in a frame. Originally I was thinking I could press enough petals to "make" a bouquet of dried flowers and frame that... however after the flurry of our wedding, I completely forgot to press the petals! It wasn't until after I came back from my honeymoon (2 weeks after the wedding date) that I was finally able to press some petals and I did not have that many to choose from since many of the flowers had already died or simply become too gross too press. ;) If you plan to press your flowers, it is best to do so within two days after your wedding. I was obviously a little late! I tried to press one of each flower and it wasn't until recently that I finally pulled those dried flowers out of hiding and arranged them into a memorable frame.

Here are some "before" pictures of my bouquet.

 side view of the bouquet, image by Amelia Lyon

top view of the bouquet, image by Amelia Lyon

My main tool for flower petal pressing was a gift from a past student! I am sure you can find a similar one from Michael's. They are super easy to use. Just make sure your flowers are not too "wet" and not too bulky when you place them in to press them. If a flower is bulky, I try to flatten it a bit with my fingers before placing it in the press. Just to be safe, I usually leave my flowers in the press for 2-3 weeks, depending on how many full flowers, versus petals, I have.

After you press your desired petals, leaves and flowers, you should have something like this:

Please note that if I had pressed these flowers sooner, some of them would have more color than they do here. boo.

Above are items that were needed to complete this project (I took these pictures along with the two other ones above, so please disregard the low quality!). I purchased a simple white frame from Ikea for $7, used my angled tweezers for picking up the delicate petals and used white and pink papers from our wedding. For this and many other projects, I use the PVA bookbinding glue from Paper Source. I LOVE this glue because it is pH neutral and lasts a really, really long time. I take it out of the original packaging and pour it into mason jars because the lid on the plastic tub sometimes gets stuck (with the glue) and placing it in mason jars is just prettier. :) I love how it looks like a yummy glass of milk!

I wanted to make a frame that looked like the vintage collections that name the scientific species term of plants, insects, etc. So, I printed the scientific name of each flower onto the white linen paper and placed that label next to each corresponding flower. I adhered both flowers and labels to the blush pink paper with the PVA glue. The flowers only need small dabs of glue on key points, you don 't have to worry about covering the entire backside of the flower with a layer of glue. Since I was not able to press the flowers right away, I did not have good examples of a peony or tulip, but I still wanted to name them in the frame since they were in my bouquet. So, I used two sweet pea petals in lieu of the actual missing flowers and placed them in the corner with the names of the missing flowers. This way, even if my children or grand children see this frame later, they will know exactly what flowers were in my bouquet. :) I know, I am a sentimental sap.

And here is the final result! These following images are by my sweet hubby, Up Imagery, and they are his contribution to this project of preserving my bridal bouquet! ;)

close-ups of each flower:

 ranunculus

 sweet pea

 lily of the valley

 lisianthus

 missing peony and tulip, represented by sweet pea petals :)

I didn't have much color in my flowers to begin with, but if you do have a colorful bouquet and press your flowers early, you should be able to capture a lot of the beauty of their original hues. There are also companies that will press your flowers for you and professionally arrange them into the shape of your bouquet. Even if this is not something you would consider, you should still check it out because the results are pretty amazing! Here is an example of one place (in the UK) that does a pretty fantastic job!

Hope this is helpful for all of your engaged ladies who are beginning to think about flowers and such. I would love to hear if any of you have other ideas or tips on preserving your bridal bouquet!