Design decisions- what will your pressed bouquet look like?

How to choose style

The first thing to do is find an artist whose work you love, and whose style resonates with you. There are lots of different floral preservation options out there, so choose one that works for you. Look at website, social media, Google reviews- get a feel for what is important and matches your personal style and tastes. In this blog, I’ve summarised my main design styles and hinted at which might work best for your choice of flowers.

Bouquet style

Often regarded as the traditional pressed flower style, bouquet style designs have made a bit of a resurgence of late. This arrangement is typically constructed as a centred cluster of flowers, intended to represent how the bouquet looked when fresh- in simple terms, think of focal flowers in the centre, with the foliages and fillers arranged around the outsides. In practice, a flat reconstruction of a multi-dimensional fresh bouquet will always look different to its fresh counterpart, but that’s part and parcel of having your flowers pressed- they will look different! I think this arrangement works really well with classic wedding bouquets, comprising a mix of different foliages (think eucalyptus, grasses) and some strong focal flowers (roses, peonies) and some of the common filler flowers (lisianthus, astrantia, veronica).

Collage style (scattered/freestyle)

This is my go-to design style- it really does suit all sorts of bouquets and floral arrangements. Whether you have a minimalist bouquet with just a few components, or one packed full of different bits and bobs, collage style offers a design that will be completely bespoke to you, in a ‘freestyle’ that allows the artist greater scope to arrange, rearrange and experiment with shapes and textures to create a truly individualised piece! Favourite bouquets to work into collage style designs are those with plenty of different components, small and large florals, full of contrasting textures, complementary or contrasting colour schemes, and lots of different floral ‘shapes’. Anything goes- all the florals, all the foliages, ribbons, invitations, place names…

Meadow style

Pressed flowers meadow style

This is a contemporary style, Think grasses, wildflowers, minimal heavy foliages, floaty summer vibes. Ranunculus, scabious, poppies, cornflowers, strawflowers,  different grasses, This style is typically arranged as a linear arrangement of your flowers, with different heights and textures mixed along the ‘line’ to recreate a meadowscape.

As with most things, at the end of the day its about personal preference. Which style are you drawn to, which will look best on your currently empty wall space, which will complement your interior and simply- which one do you love the most?!