From Bridal Bouquet to Forever Flowers: White King Protea
Our favorite blogs on floral preservation — wedding flowers before and after, this time featuring one of the most whimsical bridal bouquets made by talented Mallory Wilson, founder and floral designer at Violet Floral Designs.
This bouquet had so many beautiful elements: lush white anemone, iridescent pink butterfly ranunculus, green hellebores, whimsical lunaria, various dried flowers, and the absolute show stopped — White King Protea.
What was unique with Mallory’s arraignment was that she combined some of the dried florals with fresh foliage and these varying floral textures complemented one another beautifully! Although pressing previously dried flowers is quite risky as dried stems are fragile and tend to crumble or fall apart if not gently handled, I was able to nicely press Lunaria and Pearl Everlasting without crushing the flowers.
White King Protea
Generally, tropical flowers are not the best candidates for traditional pressing methods as they naturally hold lots of moisture and tend to turn brown when pressed. However, white king protea is the exception — this exotic flower preserves beautifully and retains its white shade very well over time. My favorite thing about this flower is the velvet texture of its petals! It does need extra time to completely dry and flatten, but once preserved, it looks amazing.
Below is the gallery of the entire preservation and framing process. Enjoy!
fresh
Fresh stems are laid inside the wooden flower press. The preservation process will take up to eight weeks.
preserved
Opened flower press weeks later. Florals are pressed, preserved, and ready to be framed.