The most fragile part of your best day ever, what can be done with your wedding flowers to treasure them forever?

4 ways to treasure your flowers

• Pressing for pictures
• Casting for jewellery
• Drying for decoration
• Impressing for plaques

Such a special moment when the florist delivers your beautiful blooms, those colours, that scent… this is the bouquet that will go down the aisle with you, the spray that your betrothed will wear and the posies your bridesmaids will carry. With all that romance and magic tied up in such pretty bundles of course you want to keep them forever.

Here are some choices:

1. Pressing for pictures

This is a brilliant budget option, as it can be done easily with a flower press or newspaper and a few heavy books. Glass Kiko frames can easily be sourced from online shops such as Oliver Bonas and Accessories for the Home. The drawback? The colours fade over time and the results can vary.

Check out the talented @framedflorals for some Instagram inspiration.

2. Casting for jewellery

 

 

Cast & Found, my jewellery brand, takes your flowers and casts them into precious metal jewellery. From a rose leaf as a pendant, to a Lisianthus stem ring, to Wax Flower’s cast as a relic style coin charm. Treasuring your flowers in a piece of gold or silver jewellery, creates a real heirloom that will last forever.

A positive of casting is that only a tiny selection of your blooms are used, leaving you to explore other options too. Prices are accessible but you may decide to get a little carried away when you see what’s on offer.

This is our favourite way to treasure your flowers forever. 

 

 

3. Drying for decoration

This is perhaps the most traditional way of holding onto your big day flowers. The positive is that it is cost free and relatively easy to do. The negative to drying your flowers yourself is, that over time, the colours will fade.

There are professional preservationists in the Uk, who will preserve your flowers almost in there entirety, they have good success rates in preserving colours. The negative to professional preservation is the additional costs of a dome or frame needed to protect dried flowers as they are incredibly fragile.

Join our mailing list to read my next blog ‘How to dry your wedding flowers’.

 

4. Impressing for plaques

Another of my favourite method of treasuring your flowers is to have them pressed into clay as decorative plaques or vases.  Louise Condon Designs @ceramic_botanist creates vases and tiles by pressing your florals into clay, with an affordable price point.

Remember someone may wish to gift one of the above as a wedding present. Louise offers gift vouchers, as do we at Cast & Found.

Oh I have just thought of one extra… here is a 5^th DIY idea for you:

I have experimented in coating some of my stems with acrylic spray paint. It is fun and easy to do, with acrylic spray paint readily available in a wide variety of colours (I went for gold as sold here!). It totally changes the look and feel of your stems but you get to be playful and creative.

So, what will you opt for?

When you have done your research and chosen how you will capture your flowers plan ahead, you may need to look into the best suppliers or plan how to get your blooms to a craftsperson. At Cast & Found we are developing a way to support you sending stems to us easily, with little fuss and hassle.

Join our mailing list to be the first to hear when this service is launched.

I would love to hear your thoughts? Any other ideas we have missed? Have you had a go at any of our suggestions? Please post your comments below.

 

Written by Jessica Collin, ethical jewellery designer and owner of Cast & Found.