Preserving flowers & dress

Sorry I can't help you on whether those quotes are expensive but il be keeping an eye out on this thread as Id like to preserve my flowers after the big day

Good luck with the search xx

Hate to tell you but £145 is actually very, very reasonable for preserving flowers.... it's a long, tedious, painstaking job and unfortunately, as with most things hand-made, it's time and skill that you're paying for. Do you have any flowers in your bouquet you could dry yourself such as roses? You could just remove a couple and press them in a small flower press as a memento which is better really than drying them as in time, dried flowers do shatter. Pressed flowers last for ages if kept away out of daylight. I've still got a pressed rose from my wedding bouquet I did myself in a heavy book and it's still fine after 27 years! Another alternative which I often do for Brides is to have a replica made of your bouquet in artificial flowers.

Edited to say that I just packed my dress away straight after wearing wrapped in tissue with all the confetti still on it! I wanted to keep it exactly as it was when I wore it and although one or two pieces of the confetti have left a small stain on the dress, it all adds to the nostaglia if you see what I mean! Other than that, it's still perfect and ALMOST still fits me after all these years!

Well my dress was rented so I had to give it back. But I did preserve the flowers..that is..I dried them out and then pressed them into my wedding album..didn’t cost a thing and looks very romantic

It is really expensive to have them preserved this might be a cheaper option:

http://www.jellybrations.co.uk/grp/Homepage/homepage.html

Like Brenda I have made lots of replica Bouquets for Brides in Silk o their original Bouquet. Here is one example:

The actual Fresh Flowers:

The Replica made from Silk:

I am going to throw my bouquet but i do intend on removing 2 or 3 flowers from it 1st for pressing. I think i am going to look into getting my dress cleaned and then maybe framed.

Thanks for putting the price into perspective I guess I'm just struggling with money at the moment and don't really want to pay a lot out but if its worth getting done then I need to pay for the skill. I love the jellybrations idea, I just wish that I'd looked into before the wedding, can't believe I hadn't even thought about it! Now that my flowers have been preserved I obviously can't get that done, but hopefully its helped someone else.

my friend had her bouquet preserved. I would like to go that too I think. I knew it was expensive, but i didnt know how much!

Just to reiterate what Sherrie and Brenda have said, £145 is really reasonable. I usually recommend either Precious Petals or the Flower Preservation Studio and they often come in at over £400....

My bouquet wont need preserving as it wont be made from flowers or anything living lol.

With my dress, It will be hung in the wardrobe in a cover.