Seven benefits to a dried flower wedding

Katherine came to work with me at Happy & Glorious when the shop was in Cranbrook in 2021 (how lucky am I that she came to Canterbury with me?) One of the reasons that her CV stood out, was that she had qualified in floristry. I always intended to stock fresh flowers, but felt incredibly nervous – the care, the upkeep, and the short shelf life made me too cautious to go ahead with the plan, so when I saw that dried flowers were trending, it felt like the perfect opportunity to get Katherine to flex her skills. 

She soon taught Ami and I how to create bouquets, posies, wreaths and more, and we can often be found making beautiful chaos behind the till when we are running low on bouquets for the shop! We’ve now been growing, drying and arranging flowers since 2022, and it’s lovely that so many people are embracing the dried flower trend.

We were asked to create dried flower arrangements for our first wedding in 2024, and we’ve been lucky enough to have quite a few bookings since then! From dried flower crowns, hairbands and combs, to garlands, wreaths, table displays, even simple jam jar posies, right up to the star of the show, the bouquet, we feel incredibly privileged to have been part of so many special days. 

Flowers are such an important part of the ceremony and the after-show party, so we’ve come up with our top seven reasons to choose dried flowers for your wedding.

1. Choosing dried flowers for your wedding means that they can be created weeks in advance. No last-minute panicking, no watering and no worrying about flowers fading on a hot day. It also means that you know what flowers are available without worrying about growing seasons, because these will have been grown the previous year.

2. You get to keep the blooms for a long time! Instead of fading by the end of your wedding day, a dried flower bouquet will stay looking beautiful for months, and even years later. Keep your flowers out of direct sunlight and you’ll find that the colour lasts much longer. (and don’t vacuum them!)

3. You can pick colours for your wedding flowers based on your own preference, rather than choosing whatever is available in the month of your ceremony. You can still enjoy the blooms of summer in your winter wedding, or choose spring shades for autumn if that’s your thing. Dried flower weddings throw away the rule book!

4. Dried flowers create a fabulously vintage look, and with the warm, natural tones of the dried foliage, they look especially gorgeous in your wedding photos.

5. Dried flowers are incredibly sustainable. Ours are grown just 30 miles away (in Mama T’s garden) and delivered to our Canterbury shop by train. Fresh flowers need refrigeration, whereas all dried flowers need is a dry room. Many flowers ideal for drying, such as helichrysum and statice, require less water to grow, making them even more eco-friendly, and they dry very quickly in the right conditions without using any energy source.

6. Dried wedding flowers are incredibly versatile. Don’t want to keep them as they are? You can preserve the blooms in resin, press the flowers to create your own artwork, or separate out the blooms into tiny vases and milk bottles for a simpler look. You can use the petals as pot pourri, or as natural confetti for the next wedding that you attend!

7. Dried flowers are less expensive than fresh wedding flowers. From the time that they are harvested, they don’t need any extra care, water or nutrients, so the savings can be passed onto you!

If a dried flower wedding sounds like your cup of tea, you can find out what we at Happy & Glorious can do for you over on our dried flower wedding page. Whether you are looking for dried flower crowns, garlands, wreaths, hairbands, clips and combs, table flowers, buttonholes, posies or bouquets, or have something completely different in mind, we can’t wait to help you create your vision!