What To Do With Your Bouquet After The Wedding

In the old days this would not have even been a question. Your bouquet would have sat proudly on someone else’s dressing table as a sign that they too would soon be marching down the aisle.

Traditionally, you would have thrown it into a waiting throng of excited young ladies hoping against hope that it would be them next. Or so they say…

But more recent brides are breaking with tradition, for the bouquet toss is not as popular as it once was. Here are a few ideas you can use instead:

Give it to a special guest – your mother, grandmother, the couple at your wedding who have been married the longest, or have set the best example, in your opinion, of what it is to be married
Use them in other parts of the wedding – some brides use them, together with the bridesmaids’ bouquets, as decoration for the cake or dessert table
Do as Kate Middleton did and place it on the tomb of an unknown soldier inside Westminster Abbey (your local grave yard will do – choose one of the graves no longer visited)
Give it to an absent friend, placing it on their grave, or ‘giving’ it to them in a public tribute is a way to include them in your day
Make a ‘shadow box’ for your wedding and include the dried bouquet, your jewellery from the day (if you’re not wearing it regularly) and an invitation
Make pot-pourri from the petals and keep them in a special box on the window sill or similar
Hang them upside down to dry and then hang them on the wall
Have them professionally preserved – some companies freeze-dry or press flowers so that they will keep for longer
Dry them and use them in your wedding album
Ask your local florist to professionally preserve your bouquet (not all of them do, so you will need to shop around) which should leave you with a bouquet that looks exactly as it did on the day (keep it carefully watered immediately after the wedding) but it will be fragile, so will need careful storing