Floral arrangements are usually at top of the list with wedding decorations and wedding favour ideas, and rightfully so – they are beautiful, graceful, and, in a majority of cases, easy to make. The only problem is that they are perishable, so their beauty barely lasts for several days, that unless you opt for a proven flower preservation method.

With the right preservation method, your wedding bouquet can be kept for decades to come. Although some of the steps will depend on the type of flowers in the bouquet and the look you want for your preserved bouquet, here is what a professional flower preservation job typically entails:

1. Re-hydration of flowers

After photographing, inventorying, measuring and carefully dismantling the bouquet, each flower is soaked in a specially formulated re-hydration solution. The solution opens the closed stem, causing it to retain more water and providing it with much needed sugars. This rejuvenates the flowers so that they look impeccable for freeze-drying.

2. Pre-treatment to maintain natural colour and open the cell structure

This stage involves treating the flower with a cocktail of solutions that help to maintain its colour and open the cell structure. Unlike the previous step, this will stimulate the elimination of water from the plant's cells, while causing it to retain its natural pigment. Depending on the type of flower, the bouquet may then undergo a process of pre-freezing, which can last for up to four weeks.

3. Freeze Drying

To preserve your flowers, bouquet preservation services employ the same advanced equipment used by pharmaceutical companies to freeze-dry ingredients used in vitamins and medicines. Flowers are even more fragile when they reach this stage, so the process must be carefully controlled to prevent them from damage. Depending on the type of flower and a number of other factors, flowers will be kept under vacuum in the freeze-dryers for 2 to 3 weeks. Once the process is complete, the flowers are moved in a special low humidity room, where they can undergo curing.

4. Colour enhancement and sealing

Each flower is carefully mounted on a wire stem, and, depending on its natural colour, it undergoes a process of colour enhancement so that it retains its original pigment for many years to come. After treating, each flower is sealed with a thin polymer coating, which protects it from sun and moisture damage, and is then stored in special hermetic boxes.

5. Custom design, quality control, packaging and shipping

Since each display is tailored to the exact specifications of the customer, it is necessary to provide the exact details for the design no later than three weeks after the wedding. The flowers go through the hands of skilled floral designers, who arrange them into the displays based on the directions of the customer and photographs of the original bouquet. Each display/ design is carefully inspected for quality, and once approved, the completed displays are wrapped up for shipping or pick up by the client.