Your wedding flowers can be one of the biggest floral purchases you ever make. You have potentially spent hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds on them, worked closely with your florist to get them exactly as you want them, and then carried them around with you for one of the biggest days of your life. The difficulty, of course, is that within a few days of the wedding they will begin to wilt, and eventually you are left with the question of what to do with them.

This is where resin wedding flower preservation comes in. Rather than keeping your flowers for a few days or weeks, they can be professionally dried and set into resin, turning the actual flowers from your wedding into something that you can potentially keep for decades. This might be something relatively small, such as a keyring or piece of jewellery, or something much larger, including a heart, photo frame or even a table.

There is quite a lot to think about, though. How do you get your wedding flowers to us? How quickly do they need to arrive? How long does the whole process take? How much can you actually make from one bouquet? And perhaps most importantly, how much is it all going to cost? So, here is everything you need to know about preserving your wedding flowers in resin.

What is resin wedding flower preservation?

The process itself is relatively straightforward to explain. We take the flowers from your wedding, professionally dry them and then use those dried flowers to create the resin items you have chosen. What you create from them, however, is entirely up to you.

At Ezra's Confetti, we have well over 1,000 different flower preservation options, ranging from hearts, photo frames, paperweights and coasters through to ring holders, bookmarks, keyrings, earrings, necklaces, cufflinks, animal shapes and tables. This certainly isn't a case of simply putting your bouquet into one large block of resin!

In fact, one of the things we really enjoy is people sending us ideas. If you've seen something on Pinterest or elsewhere that you love, send it over to us. As long as the idea is physically possible and we can get our hands on the right mould, there is a pretty good chance that we will be able to make it.

How do I send my wedding flowers for preservation?

This is probably one of the biggest concerns people have, especially if they don't live anywhere near us. However, around 99% of the flowers we preserve arrive through the post, so you certainly don't need to spend the morning after your wedding driving your bouquet across the country!

Once you're booked into our preservation diary, we'll provide full postal instructions. Generally, this involves carefully wrapping the flowers using kitchen roll and craft paper, placing them securely into a suitable box and sending them to us using next-day delivery. It is a really straightforward process and, once the flowers arrive with us, we can take it from there.

Ideally, we want the flowers as soon as reasonably possible after the wedding, but this doesn't mean you need to panic about getting them into the post immediately. Flowers can often still reach us in perfectly usable condition up to around seven days after the wedding. Of course, every flower and bouquet is slightly different, so if a little more time has passed, simply send us a photograph and we can have a look at what is still possible.

Does it have to be my wedding bouquet?

Not at all. Although bridal bouquet preservation is one of the most common things we do, you can send us flowers from throughout your wedding. This might include bridesmaid bouquets, buttonholes, table arrangements, ceremony flowers or other floral decorations from the day.

You can also think beyond flowers. If there are other small items from the wedding that you would like incorporated into a particular resin piece, talk to us about them. We've worked with things such as place names, hairpins, small pieces of jewellery and table decorations, allowing the finished item to represent more than simply the flowers themselves.

The aim is to preserve something of your wedding, rather than forcing everybody's flowers into exactly the same standard design.

How long does wedding flower preservation take?

This is one of the most important things to understand before booking: flower preservation takes a really, really long time!

Typically, we would advise allowing around four months for the whole process, although it can sometimes be a little quicker and sometimes take longer. A substantial part of this time is actually spent professionally drying the flowers, which can take around two months in itself. Different flowers behave differently during the drying process, and factors such as the size of the flower, thickness of the petals and moisture content can all affect how long this takes.

The items that you order will also make a difference. Drying a small number of petals to use within coasters is naturally quite different from preserving a much larger arrangement or creating a complicated order containing numerous pieces. Ultimately, you've only got one set of wedding flowers, so this isn't a process that we want to rush simply to meet an arbitrary turnaround time.

How much can you make from one wedding bouquet?

Quite a lot, actually. There can be an assumption that one wedding bouquet equals one preservation item, but a standard-sized bouquet will often go considerably further than that. Depending on the flowers involved and the pieces you choose, we can typically create around two larger items alongside several smaller keepsakes from a standard bouquet.

Smaller items such as jewellery, keyrings, bookmarks, cufflinks and coasters need surprisingly little flower material. This means that you don't necessarily need to choose between creating one large piece for yourself or having smaller items made for other people; in many cases, you can do both.

It also opens up the opportunity to create some really personal gifts. You might decide to keep a larger heart or photo frame yourself while having keyrings made for bridesmaids, cufflinks for members of the wedding party or smaller pieces for parents and grandparents.

How expensive is resin wedding flower preservation?

There is a perception that wedding flower preservation is incredibly expensive and, looking at some of the prices available elsewhere, we can understand why. Affordability is something we have worked particularly hard on at Ezra's Confetti, and our business model means that our prices are often considerably lower than others that we see within the market.

Our smaller resin preservation items start from around £12, while approximately £25 is a common price point across many of our products. This means that a £100 budget doesn't necessarily buy one preservation item; depending on what you choose, it could potentially allow you to create half a dozen different keepsakes.

Different people can also contribute to the same preservation order. For example, you might choose a larger piece using your bridal bouquet, while bridesmaids might want something made using flowers from their own bouquets and your parents might decide they would like a photo frame. Those different people can choose and contribute towards their own items rather than everything having to be organised and paid for by one person.

Can I add flower preservation to my wedding gift list?

Yes. We offer gift vouchers for our resin flower preservation, meaning friends and family can contribute towards it as a wedding gift. This can be added to your wedding gift list or registry, allowing people to essentially put some money behind the bar for the preservation that you want after the wedding.

For couples who already have the toaster, kettle and more wine glasses than they know what to do with, having somebody contribute towards preserving the actual flowers from the wedding can make a much more personal alternative.

You also don't need to pay for the whole preservation order upfront. A 50% holding deposit allows us to reserve your date within our diary and prepare for the order, including sourcing the resin, moulds and other materials we will need. The remaining balance is then due when the flowers arrive with us.

How personalised can resin flower preservation be?

Very! Everything we create is bespoke, and you can have as much or as little involvement in the design process as you want.

Some people know exactly what they would like. They might want a particular flower placed within a particular item, have clear ideas about the arrangement and know exactly which decorative details they want included. Other people are much happier to send us their flowers, give us a broad idea of what they like and let us get on with creating something.

Both approaches work absolutely fine. Depending on the item, we can incorporate different colours and decorative elements, add glitter and even create glow-in-the-dark resin pieces. The important thing is that the finished items are made from your flowers and designed around what you actually want, rather than simply repeating the same design for every customer.

How long will preserved wedding flowers last?

One of the biggest advantages of resin wedding flower preservation is that it can extend the life of your flowers from days or weeks into many years. A properly created and cared-for resin piece could potentially be enjoyed for 15 to 20 years or longer, although it is important to remember that flowers are still natural materials and resin itself can naturally change over time - preservation doesn't mean freezing a flower permanently in exactly the condition it was in on the morning of your wedding. 

Where you display the finished piece will also have an impact. We often suggest thinking about it in the same way as a really good photograph. You certainly don't need to hide it away in a cupboard, but leaving it permanently in strong direct sunlight or close to a significant heat source is likely to cause fading and changes more quickly. Keeping it somewhere away from prolonged direct sunlight and excessive heat will give it the best chance of looking fantastic for many years.

Is resin better than simply drying wedding flowers?

This really depends on what you want from the finished flowers. We can professionally dry flowers and return them without putting them into resin, and we can also create dried flower frames. However, resin does give the flowers considerably more physical protection because they are encased rather than remaining exposed to their surroundings.

For some people, a dried bouquet or framed arrangement will be exactly what they want. For others, the ability to turn the flowers into something smaller, more practical or easier to give as a gift will make resin the better option. There isn't necessarily one right answer, which is why we offer both.

What happens to the flowers that aren't used?

Another advantage of a wedding bouquet going such a long way is that you have a number of options for anything left after we have created your resin pieces. If we professionally dry flowers that aren't ultimately needed, you can simply have them returned to you whole.

Alternatively, we can turn the remaining flowers into confetti and send them back to you. Some couples choose to scatter this somewhere meaningful, use it on an anniversary or simply keep it as potpourri. If you don't want the remaining flowers back, you can also choose to donate suitable petals to our charity confetti mixes. We support Gift of a Wedding, meaning petals from your wedding could potentially go on to become part of the confetti used at another very special wedding.

Is resin wedding flower preservation worth it?

Obviously, we're going to be slightly biased here, but we think it is worth considering what happens to your flowers otherwise. You may have spent hundreds or even thousands of pounds choosing beautiful wedding flowers, worked closely with your florist to get them exactly right and carried your bouquet through one of the most important days of your life. Without preservation, a week or two later those same flowers could potentially be heading for the bin.

Resin preservation gives you the opportunity to turn them into something that remains part of your life afterwards. That could be a large heart on a shelf, a photo frame containing your favourite wedding photograph, jewellery, cufflinks, a keyring that you carry around every day, gifts for your parents or, if you really want to go for it, even a table. Because a standard bouquet can go surprisingly far, you don't necessarily have to choose only one of those options.

If you're considering preserving your wedding flowers in resin, it is worth getting in touch before your wedding so that we can reserve your date, discuss some initial ideas and make sure you have everything you need to send the flowers safely once the big day is over.

Then you can concentrate on enjoying your wedding, and we can worry about what happens to the flowers afterwards.