pressed
Framed Pressed Flowers
Reston VA
Your Bouquet
Reimagined
You’ve had pressed flowers in mind from the very start. The garden rose that reminded you of your grandmother’s yard. The ranunculus your florist talked you into and you’ve never been more grateful. The spray of eucalyptus that tied the whole thing together. A pressed flower piece doesn’t return your bouquet as a whole the way a shadowbox does: every flower reproduced, exactly as carried. It reimagines it instead, built from the blooms that work best for the design, each one pressed and arranged by hand into something that belongs on a gallery wall.
Each bloom is pressed using traditional wooden flower presses, the paper changed by hand: daily in the first weeks, then weekly, over the course of several months. It’s slow, repetitive work, done one flower at a time. There is no shortcut that gets a bloom from fresh-cut to archival without that time passing.
Queen & I is a studio-based preservation practice in Reston, VA: wedding bouquets exclusively, handled personally by Daniel Marcey from pickup through delivery.
What Framed
Pressed Flowers Are
Pressed flower preservation is exactly what it sounds like, and nothing like what most people picture when they hear it.
Select blooms from your bouquet are carefully arranged and placed under even pressure, which slowly draws out moisture without damaging delicate petals. The absorbent paper is changed regularly in the early stages: a critical step that wicks away moisture, prevents mold, and ensures each flower dries evenly. As the blooms cure in a controlled, low-humidity environment, they gradually transform into lightweight preserved botanicals: their intricate details intact, their color softened into something that reads less like a photograph and more like a painting.
The result is flat, botanical, and completely one of a kind. No two bouquets press the same way. The color, the petal texture, the way a ranunculus fans out differently than a peony: all of it comes through in the finished piece in a way that feels less like preservation and more like portraiture.
A Higher Standard,
Built by Hand
Most pressed flower preservation works the same way most preservationists finish a piece: a pre-cut mat, a stock moulding profile, a standard frame size, with the pressed flowers simply set inside. It’s a fast, inexpensive way to finish a pressed piece, and it’s the approach most preservationists default to.
At Queen & I, nothing about a pressed flower piece is bought off the shelf. Every element is custom-built in Daniel’s Reston studio around the specific composition designed for your bouquet.
The moulding is assembled by hand to construct the frame. The mat board is precision-cut using a Wizard International Computerized Mat Cutter, the industry standard in professional framing, for exacting interior dimensions matched to the composition, not the other way around.
The difference in approach is the same one that defines every piece Daniel builds: most preservationists fit the composition to a standard frame. At Queen & I, the frame is built around the composition.
Two Display Styles –
Replication and Bird’s Eye View
A pressed flower piece at Queen & I is built in one of two styles, and like everything else, that decision is made together with Daniel at the design consultation.
Both styles return your actual flowers inside the finished piece. The difference is in how you want your bouquet to be seen, and what you want the piece to say when someone notices it on the wall.
Replication
Replication takes the form of your bouquet: flowers and stems reimagined in the same arrangement you carried down the aisle. It is not an exact three-dimensional reproduction the way a shadowbox is. It is a flat, artistic interpretation of that form, hand-composed from your actual blooms. The bouquet is immediately recognizable. The medium gives it something new.
Bird’s Eye View
Bird’s Eye View presents your flowers as seen from above: the bloom design face-forward, stems removed, composed as a flat botanical study. Where the shadowbox Bird’s Eye View is your bouquet seen directly from above, the pressed version is a reinterpretation of that perspective: each flower placed with intention, the composition designed around the character of your specific blooms.
Built to Museum
Conservation Standards
A pressed flower piece is only as permanent as the materials used to frame it. Non-archival backing yellows over time, acid migrates into the petals, and glass without UV protection accelerates fading. The framing isn’t a finishing step: it’s the conservation standard that protects everything the pressing achieved.
Every piece Daniel frames in the studio uses materials trusted by the world’s leading conservation institutions: the same archival standards the Library of Congress recommends.
Larson-Juhl moulding: respected by professional framers and conservators since 1893, chosen for construction quality and long-term structural integrity.
Nielsen Bainbridge matting: Artcare technology, developed specifically to protect works on paper and organic materials from the acids and pollutants that cause deterioration over time.
Tru Vue glazing: UV-protective glass that blocks the wavelengths most responsible for color loss, without distorting the clarity of what’s behind it.
Your flowers will always keep their shape. Some blooms may soften slightly in color over the years. That’s the nature of organic material. Archival framing ensures nothing in the frame accelerates that process.
“A pressed flower piece isn’t trying to be your bouquet exactly as it was. It’s something more modern than that: your flowers, reimagined into art.”
– DANIEL MARCEY, QUEEN & I
Pressed Flower
Preservation Pricing
$1,250
Pressed flower preservation at Queen & I is one price, regardless of bouquet size. No additional fees for materials or options.
The same price covers pressing, your private design consultation, hand-arrangement, and archival framing, completed entirely in the Reston studio using museum-grade archival materials. Sales tax not included.
FAQ About
Framed Pressed Flowers
Reserve Your Pressed
Flower Commission
Wedding
Coming Up?
Pressed flower commissions run on the same limited schedule as every other format Daniel builds: just 2–3 spots for DC metro brides each week, so booking at least three months ahead gives you the best shot at securing your date. A call is the fastest way to start: Daniel will walk you through pricing, how your flowers are collected, and what to expect from the pressing and framing timeline, which takes longer than other formats. If you’d like to see a finished piece first, studio visits in Reston, VA are available by appointment.
Wedding
Already Passed?
A pressed flower piece can still be possible even after the wedding, but freshness matters more here than with any other format, since pressing works best on flowers that haven’t already begun to wilt. Please text Daniel a couple current photos of your bouquet first, so he can assess their real condition honestly rather than guess based on timing alone. From there, a quick call will tell you exactly what’s realistic for your flowers, and how quickly you’ll need to get them into the studio once you talk, so the pressing process can begin.
Daniel Marcey
Owner, Queen & I - Floral Preservation │ Reston, VA
Framing a pressed flower piece correctly takes two kinds of knowledge most preservationists don’t have: a deep understanding of the flower itself, and a professional framer’s eye for conservation materials and composition. Daniel brings both: two and half decades of flower preservation, paired with hands-on experience as a professional framer, applied to every piece he builds in his Reston, VA studio using the same archival materials trusted by museums and conservation institutions worldwide.