How to look after your Wedding Bouquet on your Wedding Day
Your wedding flowers do need to be hydrated on the day so that they are fresh, colourful and photo-ready. Fresh, vibrant and colourful flowers carried by a bride and her bridesmaids adds something extra special to the visuals of the day, finishing off their dresses just perfectly.
During the summer months of wedding season especially, it’s important to look after wedding flowers as they are often delivered in the morning when ceremonies are taking place in the afternoon. This means that flowers may be hanging around for a good number of hours before the actual ceremony and when they are required in wedding photos. This could mean keeping them fresh for up to 6 hours after they’ve been delivered!
Here are 5 tips and tricks to help preserve your wedding flowers on the day
#1 When your flowers are delivered, particularly in the summer months, keep them store them somewhere cool and dark until they are needed for the wedding. Often, the tendency is to place them in a window in direct sunlight, because we all believe that flowers need sunlight right? Of course they do need sunlight to grow, but once they are cut, that direct overload of sunlight will do nothing but accelerate their wilting. So a cool place, preferably dark would be a great place to store them. Even though the flowers need to be cool, they mustn’t be cooled down by air conditioning or a draughty environment. This will equally lead to their ultimate and untimely wilting.
#2 Fresh wedding flowers are usually delivered in water, and brides normally leave them in water until the bridal party is dressed and ready to go. But no. Whilst it’s important to do whatever you can to preserve your wedding flowers on the day, it’s equally important to look after those dresses! If you’re really diligent and store them as #1 above (cool dark storage), you’ll be surprised at how long they can last out of water. So keep them hydrated as long as you can (preferably in luke warm water), and about 30-60 minutes before they are needed, those stems need to be nice and dry before they are held in front of your dresses, especially if bridesmaids are wearing coloured dresses. When you take them out of water, don’t underestimate the amount of water there is caught up in the stems, so a nice dry tissue or towel would be good to pat in between the stems to remove any water that may drip onto dresses.
#3 When your flowers arrive a good trick is to trim the stems diagonally. This helps to slow down the unwanted wilting by enabling their ability to absorb water.
#4 After the ceremony and the photos, between the wedding breakfast and evening, it would be a great idea to place the flowers back into luke warm water for an hour or two, to keep them hydrated, and fresh for longer.
#5 A wedding florist once told me this amazing trick to help preserve the flowers and keep them looking amazing. Hairspray! Yes you read it right……hairspray. Apparently it keeps them looking fresh into the evening. Who knew?!
If you’re wanting stunning photos of your flowers in your wedding photography, why not be in touch for a chat about your wedding plans. I’d love to hear from you.
Dee xx