Hello My Vintage Lovelies,

As it’s feature Friday I wanted to introduce you to our dear friend Vicky from Petals and Lace, a very talented Flower Preserver.

I wished I had know about it service when I got married 5 years ago. I so wanted to preserve my bouquet, as they were Cornish Roses and being married down in Cornwall it meant a lot to me. I tried in vain and ended up with dried dead roses on my dressing table for a couple of years.

So when I became aware of Vicky talents I thought it would be a wonderful idea to feature her and being vintage lovelies we asked her some questions….

Could you tell us what prompted you to become Flower Preserver

I have always enjoyed art & craft, I’ve tried most crafts over the years!

My job was working with Autistic children, both in special & main stream schools. I used to help Pauline, owner of Petals and Lace, during her busy periods & really enjoyed it. Pauline and Betty taught me so much about flower preservation, both in 3-D and pressed forms.

When did you start your company and where are you based?

After 23 years, Pauline decided to retire from Petals and Lace, which she ran from her home in Great Dunmow, Essex.I felt that it would be such a shame for the business to stop as there are very few companies able to offer this service. After much consideration, I decided to leave my school job and take over Petals and Lace.In August 2011, Petals and Lace moved to my home in Danbury, Essex.

What kind of services to you offer?

We no longer press flowers as we have installed new equipment in order for us to specialise in 3-D preservation.

We preserve flowers from all occasions which can then be framed alongside any memorabilia from the occasion. For example, wedding flowers could be framed with the brides veil and tiara, an invitation, table decorations, name place cards or a photograph.

Our frames are all hand made so your choice of frame is made exactly to the size you need.

Last summer we were honoured to preserve Olympic Double Gold Medallist Laura Trott’s winners bouquet. We were proud to preserve 23 Olympic and Paralympic winners bouquets in total.

Sadly, over the winter we preserve mainly funeral flowers and frame them alongside photos, poems and locks of hair.

At the moment we are preserving several beautiful bouquets from winter weddings. Our truly Christmas ones were a hand tied bouquet of 40 deep red roses, and a trailing bouquet of ivory roses, ivy and red hypericum.

What are your plans for 2013

Where to start? We have so many new ideas for 2013!

At the moment we are working with our advertising company on a new website design which should be launched very soon.

 

We are now working with a fantastic company who are able to make stunning paperweights for our clients. A personal message can be put on a disc in the base, making wonderful thankyou presents for the bridesmaids, best-man or parents.

We recently introduced our new memory boxes, which capture the entire feel of an event alongside some of the flowers. Examples can be seen on our website www.petalsandlace.co.uk.

Our fantastic new freeze drier enables us to produce amazing preserved flowers! The flowers look so fresh and the colour retention is much better than our desiccant dried flowers.

So many venues will only allow guests to throw 100% biodegradable confetti, our petals are the perfect answer. We are thrilled to be making bespoke confetti for The Traditional Vintage Flower Company, producing cones and baskets of petals to match their wedding flowers.

We are currently working with a company developing further products which we hope to launch later in the year. Watch this space!

What advice would you give to anyone thinking of having their bouquet preserved?

Contact us as soon as possible!

Due to the delicate nature of the work and the personal service we like to offer, we only accept a limited amount of bouquets each week. A small deposit secures your booking and there is nothing else payable until completion, which is approximately 12 weeks after the wedding.

Upon booking we will give advice on things that you, and your florist, can do to help the bouquet stay fresh on your wedding day and until it reaches us. Book today! We are giving 10% discount on the first 3 bookings quoting reference: TVF22213

Many thanks Vicky for sharing your story with us. Just love what you do and remember Vive La Vintage….. X x x