Floral Expressions Stationery
What happens to wedding flowers after the event? You might enjoy the centerpieces for a while or dry out the bridal bouquet, but most of it ends up in the compost pile, never to be seen again. I was approached by Cast Paper Art, a company based in St. Louis, to see if I might pass along an alternative to my wedding couples: Floral Expressions Stationery. They take the flowers from your wedding day and make handmade paper with them so you have custom thank-you cards that are unique and meaningful. I personally love the idea!
I had the perfect couple in mind for the floral stationery: Shelley & Anthony! It turns out that they actually used floral paper for their typed invitation suite too, so it really was the perfect match. See below for a bit of the process and the final result.
Here’s a little glimpse back to remember what the original Farmgirl Flowers bouquets looked like at their wedding:
After the wedding, Shelley met me at my office to drop off a big box of the flowers she had collected. I went ahead and lopped off all the tops, as you only need to send the flowers and not the stems to the company.
Everything was thrown into the prepaid priority mail envelops. No other packaging or special treatment needed, but the fresher the better they say!
And a couple weeks later, voila! Gorgeous, custom flower paper made with 100% cotton fibers.
Shelley and Anthony ordered 150 thank-you cards, and they come with plain cream colored envelopes already return-addressed.
Each card is lined with a loose sheet of thin, plain paper that has this line, which I think is great for explaining the cards: “This stationery was crafted using flowers from Shelley and Anthony’s wedding.”
The purple and pink petals were my favorite, as I noticed a lot of the white flowers had discolored to a yellow, but they were still pretty too.
I love all those deckled edges!
Floral Expressions is a fun way to recycle your wedding florals into custom stationery. Learn more at Cast Paper Art!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco but often traveling and working around the world. See more of her museum, opera, and symphony adventures under #awculturetime on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
