Make sure your wedding flowers never lose their beauty...preserve them!
If you're interested in preserving your bouquet, contact us, we can help.
What It is Bouquet preservation and why preserve it?Your bridal bouquet would be dried via a professional service and displayed as a meaningful keepsake. Preserving your bouquet in preserving the moment that will stir the emotions in the years to come and will also be a decorative piece for your home.
There are a few methods to bouquet preservation: silica gel (quick-drying mode via immersion in a sand-like, silicon substance); pressing (press select blooms from the bouquet and flatten via a flower press and framed); and freeze-drying (pros spray the blooms with a starch to set the colors and then "bake" the bouquet in a freeze-dryer). All modes allow for beautiful presentation in frames, glass domes, etc. But freeze-drying is the only method that allows for "open arrangements" (they don't have protective covering), and yields the most true-to-life results in terms of flower shapes and colors.
Cost varies between $150-$450, depending on choice of preservation and presentation. i.e. A freeze-dried shadow box presentation might be $150-$200, a dome presentation (preserved via silica gel) can cost around $300-$450, while a partial bouquet pressed and framed against silk might price at $165-$200.
For best results, the bouquet should be dropped off at the preserving establishment as soon after the wedding as possible. Translation: the day after the wedding or the Monday following a Saturday reception. Many professional services will be unable to provide service if the blooms have been too badly dried out, bruised, or otherwise damaged. In these cases, blooms would have to be replaced at an additional charge. If you're simply dropping off or shipping your bouquet your bouquet, transport it in a Styrofoam cooler, with gel packs on the bottom. Loosely cover the packs with tissue paper or wax paper (so that the bouquet doesn't touch them directly) and then place the bouquet on top. Then, pack tissue paper around the bouquet to prevent it from moving and bumping.
Some tips: To cut down on the cost, think about preserving just a few select blooms instead of the full bouquet. Also, it's important for preservationists to receive the bouquet in prime condition. So get a tossing bouquet, and, at the reception, leave your actual bouquet in a safe place where it won't get bruised or crushed, have your coordinator handle this as a precaution and/or have your coordinator take charge of delivering/shipping it out to the preservation destination. Sometimes brides will immediately have the caterer store the blooms in the refrigerator, or, if it's a hand-tied bouquet, stick the stems in water.
Receiving the finished, fully preserved product should take 8-12 weeks with freeze-drying; 6-8 weeks with silica gel; 6-8 weeks with pressing. Formally preserved flowers can last indefinitely, maybe even up to 100 years. If humidity is avoided, along with direct sunlight and bright halogen lamps, you can expect their bouquets to last a lifetime.
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