No one wants to say goodbye to their wedding bouquet, especially when you’ve spent time and energy carefully customizing your specific blooms and colors to create a gorgeous floral showstopper to accompany you down the aisle. Thinking about the mesmerizing process flowers go through from seed to flower, to your florist, and eventually to your hands on your special day, it’s no wonder you want to hold onto them. But flowers are as fleeting as they are beautiful and they fade after their dazzling short lives.

We are thrilled to offer a new ending to this story: We reclaim your wedding bouquet and design the pressed flowers into a modern piece of art for your home to be admired as a symbol of who you are as a couple. Preserving your bouquet, or any important flowers for that matter, is a remarkable way to hold onto this keepsake for many years to come.

We love working with clients that have a complex color palette! We feel having a wide variety of colors gives your finished art project an extra pizzazz while also leaving more room to be creative in the process. Sometimes the color change of flowers after they are pressed can be fun! We’ve even experienced the amazing toffee roses fading to a slight purple color once pressed! Many flowers do retain their color beautifully during the preservation process and sometimes can become even brighter. The most important thing to understand is that your flowers may not look the same as they did on your wedding day, but it’s all part of the process of crafting a unique design, unlike any other piece.

A few ideal flowers to preserve include:

• Rose
• Anemone
• Ranunculus
• Lilac
• Nigella
• Peony
• Pansy

This is just to name a few! We can work with nearly any flower and will certainly let you know all the options before we begin the process. We assure you, that your flowers will be gorgeously preserved so you can display the memory of your blooms for years to come.

The fascination with collecting and preserving flowers dates back for centuries. The art of preserving flowers is believed to date back to ancient civilizations. In 16th century Japan, the art form known as Oshibana originated which is largely accepted as one of the first forms of floral preservation. Oshibana is the art of using pressed flowers and other botanical materials to create an entire picture from these natural elements. It was created as one of their disciplines to promote patience, harmony with nature, and powers of concentration.

As trade with Japan increased in the mid-1800s, citizens of Western countries became fascinated with the use of pressed flowers as an art form. By the late 1800s, flower pressing had become a favorite pastime in England and the United States.

The flowers from your wedding day often endure a lot of wear and tear by the time they reach Wild Blossoms Studio for preservation. Proper care and handling after your event is very important to keep them looking their best! Flowers should be stored in fresh clean, cold water in a cool, dry area away from direct sun. Be very careful not to freeze flowers in a household refrigerator and keep them away from ripening fruits that release ethylene gas.

We also recommend asking your florist not to spray your flowers with the preservative Crowning Glory. This product locks in moisture and will promote mold during the pressing process.

We’re here to help! We are happy to recommend flowers to include in your bouquet before the wedding, ensuring they will complement the preservation style you are most excited about.

Each project takes a minimum of 4-6 months from start to finish to allow time for the flowers to cure and to work through the creative design process. Elycia creates each art piece using the flowers from your bouquet that look the best, have retained their color, and have interesting textures and shapes. In a sense, she lets the flowers tell her what to do. We find that the most sought-after preservation designs are from the fresh bouquets that Elycia creates for her wedding clients. That said we are happy to preserve bouquets from other studios and can receive flowers from anywhere in the us.

All of our designs are mounted to glass and framed in a solid wood or metallic frame of your choice.

If your event is taking place outside of Northern Colorado, we can send you a shipping kit with everything you need to get your flowers safely to Wild Blossoms Studio within 24-48 hours after your wedding day. We’ve also created a step-by-step video with  Shipping Instructions

We can also schedule a time for you to drop off your bouquet at Elycia’s private studio in North Fort Collins.

A 50% non-refundable retainer is required to guarantee your spot on our botanical calendar.

When your flowers arrive, we will unpack and inspect them, update you on the quality, deconstruct your bouquet, and begin the pressing process.

Once your flowers are pressed and dried, Elycia will arrange them to create a one-of-a-kind design. Before flowers are mounted you will have the opportunity to give feedback during your design consultation. Designs are mounted after the client’s approval and then framed locally. When framing is complete artwork is photographed and then packaged in our sustainable packaging. When your art is ready to be shipped, we will notify you with a UPS tracking number.

Click here to find out more about our floral preservation process!