There are many choices today when if comes to choosing flowers for your wedding...fresh, silk, dried and preserved. Fresh flowers are beautiful but fragile, prone to breakage, wilting and dying. Fresh flowers are delivered the day of the wedding and if they are not to your liking, it is usually too late to do anything about them. You have to go ahead and use the flowers even if they happen to be second rate. Silk flowers avoid those pitfalls but don't look fresh and can look lifeless and dull if used solely in a bouquet or arrangement, although some new silks look more real today. I use silk stephanotis or at times sunflowers if the bride requests those flowers, but on a limited basis. Dried flowers are brittle and don't hold up well; usually the colors are faded and not lively. Preserved flowers, on the other hand, look and feel like fresh because they are real flowers that have been specially treated to last a long time. They won't wilt or die on your special day, have vibrant colors to go with any color scheme AND you can have them delivered in advance of the wedding to assure that there are no surprises on your wedding day. Using preserved flowers for centerpieces eliminates the need for water and keeping the arrangements hydrated to avoid them deteriorating throughout the event. Also, centerpieces made with preserved flowers make great gifts for the guests after the event. Pricing for preserved flower bouquets can sometimes be more expensive than fresh but oftentimes a florist who specializes in preserved flowers can find ways to meet your budget. Choosing a bouquet made with preserved flowers offers other bonuses. There is the advantage of saving additional costs that would be incurred if you which to have your bouquet preserved after the wedding. You have your heirloom to keep the day of your wedding...your bouquet is already preserved. For those brides who are getting married near Valentine's day, red roses are more expensive and difficult to get. Using preserved flowers avoids that problem because red roses are available all the year around. Preserved flowers do not retain their scents except for some foliage as pine, cedar, eucalyptus, rosemary and some others. You can add a drop of essential rose oil or other scents to the backs of the bouquets or ribbon in the arrangement if you want to have scented flowers. Preserved flowers should not get wet as some of the dyes in the flowers can let out. Still, preserved flowers offer greater advantages over fresh, silk or dried flowers for bouquets.