Here's How to Preserve Your Bouquet After the Wedding Day

Along with your photos and your guest book, a bouquet can be one more amazing keepsake from your wedding day. Check out exactly how to preserve it if you're interested in holding onto it for the long haul, below. 

Choose Your Option

You have a few choices. The press-and-frame method is the simplest and most affordable—it consists of flattening a few blooms from the bouquet so they can be displayed in a picture frame. You can DIY a project like this by pressing a few petals between the pages of a thick book, but if you're looking for a really polished look, you can also hand it over to a pro. A professional frame filled with pressed flowers mixed with a few wedding photos will typically cost about $150.

If you aim to have your bouquet or a few flowers from your bouquet preserved in their original shape, a glass dome or shadow box is the route to take. Both silica gel drying and freeze-drying—which can be done by professional preservationists—save the natural, three-dimensional shape of the flowers. The difference between the two methods is just technical: Silica gel drying involves burying the flowers in a granular substance until they're totally dry, while freeze-drying entails slowly dehydrating the blooms in a cold, vacuum-sealed machine. The bouquet is then sealed inside a glass container like a shadow box or dome. Preserving your bouquet like this is more complicated and pricier than pressing. A glass dome filled with a freeze-dried bouquet could run up to $500 or more.

Find a Preservation Company

You'll want to choose an established company with positive reviews and make a reservation about a month in advance of the wedding. You can pick either a local company or a nationwide one (for example,
Everlastings Flowers specialize in pressed flowers, and FreezeFrameIt and Florage specialize in freeze-dry). 

Get It Delivered

Once you've chosen a company, all you have to do is drop off or ship your bouquet to a preservationist as soon after the wedding as possible (a day or two is best). You may have to pack the bouquet in a padded cardboard box or cooler that either you or the company provides—depending on the policy of the pro you pick.