Pressed Frame or Shadow Box? How to Choose the Right Bridal Bouquet Preservation Style

If you're looking into preserving your bridal bouquet, you've probably come across two main styles of flower preservation: pressed flower frames and three-dimensional shadow boxes. Both can be beautiful, but they create very different finished pieces, and I think it's worth understanding the difference before you decide what you want done with your flowers.

After working with dried flowers and bouquet preservation, I've become a big fan of shadow boxes, but I don't think they're automatically the right choice for every bride. Pressed flower art has a really beautiful look of its own, especially if you like delicate, botanical artwork or the clean look of a floating frame. The biggest question I would ask yourself is whether you want your flowers to become a piece of flat botanical artwork, or whether you want to preserve as much of the three-dimensional character of your bouquet as possible.

What happens when you press a wedding bouquet?

Pressed flowers have that classic, delicate look that most of us picture when we think about flower preservation. The blooms are flattened and arranged on a background, often with lots of negative space around them. I really love the simplicity of this style, and floating frames in particular are very popular right now. They can look beautiful in a home because they're relatively flat, light and understated, and they have more of an art-print or botanical-specimen feeling than a traditional shadow box.

The thing I think brides don't always realize, though, is that pressing a wedding bouquet is much more involved than simply putting your bouquet inside a heavy book. A fresh bouquet contains flowers with very different shapes, moisture levels and structures, and many of those flowers have to be taken apart or carefully prepared before they can be pressed. A rose, for example, doesn't simply become a flat version of the rose you carried down the aisle. The petals may need to be separated and individually pressed and then used to recreate the flower in the finished artwork. You're essentially taking the flower apart and creating something new from those pieces.

That's part of what makes pressed flower art so beautiful, but it's also one of the reasons I personally find it more labour intensive. There is a lot of time involved in preparing individual flowers and getting them to press properly, especially when you're working with an entire bridal bouquet made up of many different types of flowers.

Not every flower loves being pressed

This is probably the biggest consideration if you're deciding between the two methods. Some flowers are naturally much easier to press than others, and some of the large, full flowers that brides love in their wedding bouquets can be quite challenging.

Take a dahlia, for example. It's a thick, three-dimensional flower with layers and layers of petals. How do you flatten that beautiful shape while still making it look like the dahlia you carried? You can certainly press dahlias, but the process changes the flower considerably. The same thing can happen with roses. A pressed rose can be beautiful, but it generally doesn't look like the original rose anymore because of the way the petals have to be separated and flattened.

I've also personally had more problems pressing flowers with higher moisture content. White flowers can sometimes be particularly frustrating because they can discolor or turn brown during the pressing process. That's not to say they can't be pressed successfully, but there are simply more variables to deal with.

This is one of the reasons I really like three-dimensional drying for wedding bouquets. Instead of trying to force every flower into the same preservation method, you can choose a drying technique that works with the natural structure of the flower.

Why I love shadow boxes

Shadow boxes are my personal favourite because they allow you to keep so much more of the character of the original bouquet. Instead of flattening everything, the flowers can be dried while retaining their natural shape and then arranged at different depths inside the frame.

For me, there's something really special about looking at a preserved bouquet and still being able to recognize the flowers you carried on your wedding day. A rose still has its shape, a dahlia can still have all of those beautiful layers, and a larger focal flower can remain a focal flower instead of becoming a collection of individual petals.

For three-dimensional preservation, flowers can be dried in different ways depending on the type of bloom. I use hang drying for many flowers, and silica gel is particularly useful for blooms that benefit from having their shape supported while they dry. I've been especially impressed with how dahlias turn out when they're dried in silica gel. They're such thick flowers that I find this method gives me a much better chance of maintaining that beautiful three-dimensional form.

I've also had really good success hang drying flowers such as roses and peonies. In many cases, I find it simpler and less time-consuming to take the bouquet apart into its individual ingredients and hang the appropriate flowers to dry rather than spending the time preparing every part of the bouquet for pressing.

Shadow boxes give you more freedom when designing the artwork

The other thing I love about shadow boxes is the amount of freedom you have once the flowers are dried. You're not limited to arranging everything on one flat surface. You can have a large flower sitting slightly forward, smaller flowers tucked underneath, greenery layered behind everything and different textures at different depths.

You can even combine techniques. For example, I can use some flatter or pressed greenery as part of the background while keeping the main flowers three-dimensional. That gives me a lot more options when I'm trying to make the finished piece feel balanced and intentional while still using the actual flowers from the bouquet.

I think of it almost like creating a tiny landscape inside the frame. The flowers don't all have to sit at exactly the same depth, and that gives the finished piece much more dimension and personality.

Make sure your shadow box is deep enough

If you're considering a shadow box, one thing I would definitely pay attention to is the interior depth. A shadow box might look deep enough from the outside, but what really matters is how much working space you have between the backing and the glass.

This becomes especially important if your bouquet contains thick flowers such as dahlias. For those, I like having around 2.5 inches of interior working depth so that the flowers aren't being compressed against the glass. You don't necessarily need an enormous frame; you just need enough depth to accommodate the flowers you're actually preserving.

This is something I would ask your preservation artist about before purchasing a frame yourself. The ideal depth will depend on the flowers in your bouquet and the style of artwork you're hoping to create.

What if you're a DIY bride?

If you're thinking about preserving your own wedding bouquet at home, I actually think three-dimensional drying can be a little more forgiving for a beginner than trying to press an entire bouquet. You can see my bridal bouquet preservation workflow here.

If I were a bride doing this myself, I would start by taking the bouquet apart into its individual flowers and greenery rather than trying to dry the entire bouquet together. For flowers that are suitable for hang drying, you can hang them upside down somewhere dry, dark and well ventilated and allow them to dry naturally.

Pressing can be more complicated because you need to think about how each individual flower will flatten, how much moisture it contains and whether it needs to be taken apart first. You also have to be much more careful about positioning the petals and checking the flowers as they dry. It's absolutely possible to DIY pressed flowers, but I think there's a steeper learning curve if you're trying to preserve a whole wedding bouquet rather than a few simple flowers.

That doesn't mean DIY shadow-box preservation is foolproof, either. Some flowers are much more difficult than others, and silica gel requires some care and attention as well. But I find that hang drying, in particular, is a relatively approachable place for a beginner to start.

Is pressed flower preservation cheaper?

Cost comparison is also a huge factor in your decision. You might assume that a pressed frame would cost less because the finished artwork is flatter and doesn't require a deep frame, but the amount of labour involved can actually be quite significant.

From my perspective, pressing can be very labour intensive because of the amount of preparation that goes into each individual flower. You're taking apart flowers, preparing petals, pressing them, checking them as they dry and then reconstructing or arranging all of those pieces into the final artwork. There is still a considerable amount of artistry involved after the flowers have been dried.

Shadow boxes can also be labour intensive, particularly when an artist is carefully arranging a three-dimensional bouquet and working with lots of different flower types. And the frame itself can add to the cost. A quality shadow box with enough depth for large flowers is generally going to cost more than a simple flat frame.

So I wouldn't assume that one style is automatically cheaper. If you're comparing preservation artists, I'd look at the total price and exactly what is included rather than choosing based solely on whether the piece is pressed or three-dimensional.

So which should you choose?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to what you want your flowers to look like after your wedding.

If you love the look of delicate botanical artwork, want something that sits very flat against the wall and like the idea of your flowers becoming an artistic arrangement of individual petals and greenery, a pressed frame could be a beautiful choice. There is something very timeless about pressed flowers, and a simple floating frame can look incredibly elegant.

If, on the other hand, you want to look at your artwork and still see the three-dimensional flowers you remember carrying, I would lean toward a shadow box. I especially recommend considering this option if your bouquet contains larger flowers such as dahlias, roses or peonies, because those blooms can have so much character in their natural form. Three-dimensional preservation also gives the artist more freedom to layer the flowers and greenery and create something that feels more like a miniature version of your original bouquet.

Neither option is better for every bouquet. The right choice really depends on the flowers you have, the style of artwork you love and how closely you want the finished piece to resemble the original bouquet.

And if you're still undecided, I'd start by looking at your actual bouquet rather than choosing a frame first. Think about the individual flowers that make up your arrangement. Are there big, dimensional blooms that you really want to recognize in the finished artwork? Are you drawn to a minimalist botanical look? Do you want something flat and understated, or something with layers and depth?

Those answers will probably tell you more about which preservation style is right for you than anything else.

Whether you choose pressed flowers or a shadow box, the most important thing is to get your bouquet into the right preservation process as soon as possible after your wedding. Fresh flowers begin changing quickly, and the way they're handled in those first few days can have a big impact on the final result.

At the end of the day, you're not really preserving a flower exactly as it looked on your wedding morning. You're preserving a little piece of that day in a form that you can keep. And I think both pressed flower art and three-dimensional shadow boxes can do that beautifully — they just tell the story in two very different ways.