Bride's Shadowboxes

One of my new favorite ideas this year is the Bride's Shadowbox. It's a fabulous idea, if I do say so myself. All brides have the same problem: What to do with her bouquet at the end of the evening. You could maybe hang the flowers upside down and dry them, but then what? They are brittle and shatter easily. You can't clean them at all. They just look horrible. But use fake? NEVER! Ugh! So what do you do? How do you use beautiful, fresh, fragrant flowers and then somehow keep them as a remembrance of the best day of your life for the rest of your life? The answer? A shadowbox!

This is one of the shadowboxes I did this season. I used flowers and extras from the bouquet, then added a copy of their wedding invitation and a picture from the wedding with the bouquet showing. It turned out really great!

Butterflies are a personal favorite of this bride, so they were placed throughout the cascading bouquet. They are a great addition to the shadowbox.

I have been using Silica Gel (which is actually a powder) for my preservation. It freezes the flowers in time. It is an amazing thing! It draws the moisture out of the flowers, but it doesn't take the moisture on itself. So you can use the powder over and over again.

Some flowers do better than others with Sillica Gel. You have to carefully pour the powder on the flowers, so flat flowers, like daisies of any variety, or stiff flowers that you could put in a cup and fill with Silica Gel, like roses, do especially well.

In order for the Bride's Shadowbox idea to work for you, you need to do some advanced planning. The preservation has to be done immediately. So you either need a willing florist that someone can deliver the bouquet to them at the end of the evening for them to do the preservation, or a willing family member that will wait for you to be done with it and then start the preservation process. Perhaps your family member or friend could do the preservation and then you could take everything to your florist when you return from your honeymoon for them to arrange. It is a long process, but it's worth it for the treasure you get in the end! The best part about the Bride's Shadowbox is that the options are limitless to what you could include. Pictures, your cake topper, your cake-cutting knife, the garter belt, the tiara you wore, your jewelry, etc. etc. etc.

One thing about using Silica Gel: It is an art in and of itself! Don't think that you'll just buy some and have whoever do the preservation for you at the end of the evening having never used it before. Buy a bunch of flowers at the store and practice the preservation process. You'll learn in a hurry what works and what doesn't.

The Brides that I have done shadowboxes for have been thrilled with the idea of having somewhere to put their wedding day treasures that is clean, sturdy, all-inclusive, and looks incredible!