For a long time dried flowers were seen as a dusty out-dated relic, languishing in your grannie’s house or reminding you of potpourri, but these days they have become one of the hottest floral trends for weddings with florists and influencers flooding Instagram with hashtags like #lovelydeadcrap #driednotdead and #everlastingflowers.
Locally Sourced Dried Flowers
We love working with dried flowers and as well as drying a limited selection ourselves to help combat wasteage from previous projects, we also source our materials from other Scottish and UK growers. Some of our favourite dried flowers are hydrangea, honesty (lunaria), statice, craspedia, larkspur, eucalyptus and dahlias as well as poppy seed heads, nigella pods and grasses. We also love dried browning bracken but you have to be careful handling this as it is carcinogenic. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint and opt for locally grown flowers but are getting married outside of the typical growing season this is a great option.
Retro yet modern style flowers
Dried flowers come in all shapes and sizes and have a beautiful soft faded look. If you are going for a modern scandi/minimal look they are great for their bleached, warm muted tones and the sculptural forms of seed heads and grasses which really come into their own when they are dried. There are also lots of dyed and bleached versions available but the chemicals involved make these a less attractive option for environmentally conscious couples and we think they loose a bit of their natural look this way.
Dried flowers also work well with vintage and retro weddings, one of the biggest dried flower comebacks over the past couple of years has been pampas grass, with its dramatic shape and soft feathery texture it is great for adding light and interest to larger scale designs like floral arches, hanging installations and urns.
Why choose dried wedding flowers?
Dried bouquets and buttonholes are great for couples getting married in winter who want to still use locally sourced materials as we can create beautiful dried bouquets and buttonholes from flowers dried right here in Scotland. They are much lighter than fresh bouquets so for brides concerned about weight or their backs this is a perfect option. It’s also a good choice for couples eloping as they don’t need any water so can be picked up in advance and travel to your destination wedding without you worrying about them wilting. We can also make dried flower combs and hair accessories so you can keep wearing your floral creation over and over again.
Best of both worlds
If you don’t want to use all dried flowers in your wedding you can still include them as added areas of interest and we often put them in bouquets and buttonholes in the form of grasses and seed heads to add texture and movement. They can bring a uniqueness and an extra wow factor to any arrangement and work particularly well in autumn weddings to mirror the turning season. (Photos below by The Kitcheners).
How to care for dried flowers
Although dried flowers are “everlasting” there are some factors which can alter or spoil them:
Direct sunlight – strong light will bleach them, much like if you move a poster in a room and find a section of it is much lighter than the rest. Flowers in too much light will turn more brittle and their colour will fade but this is part of their ethereal charm.
Damp – moisture is no friend to dried flowers, it will make them moldy. Store or display your flowers away from drafty windows or wet areas like bathrooms as this humidity will encourage mold and you want your beautiful dried flowers to have good air circulation.
In many ways dried flowers are much harder to work with than fresh because they are very delicate and due to their muted tones it takes real skill to get interesting colour contrasts and vibrancy to bouquets so they don’t look flat, this challenge is one of the reasons we love working with them. If you’re interested in a dried flower arrangement get in touch.