The short answer
Measure across the outer tips, add five or six inches, and buy that container size. A 24-inch wreath needs a 30-inch container; a 30-inch wreath needs a 36. The container size on the label is an exterior dimension, and a wreath the same nominal size as its container is a wreath stored under compression.
Standard wreath sizes by door
Common wreath diameters and what they are made for| Diameter | Where it goes | How common |
|---|
| 12-16 in | Windows, kitchen cabinets, interior doors | Common as a set of several |
| 18-20 in | Apartment doors, narrow entries | Common |
| 22-26 in | Standard 36 in residential entry door | The most common size sold |
| 28-32 in | Wide entries, double doors, large porches | Less common |
| 34-48 in | Commercial entries, gates, oversized porches | Uncommon |
There is no published national standard for wreath sizing, and any page telling you there is has invented it. What exists is a market that clusters heavily around 24 inches for a front door, because that is the size that reads correctly on a standard 36-inch door without dominating it.
How to measure, in three steps
- 1
Lay it flat, decorated side up
On a table or the floor. Let the tips settle naturally rather than pressing them down, because you are measuring the size it wants to be, not the size you can squash it to.
- 2
Measure across the widest point
Outer tip to outer tip, straight through the center. Take two measurements at right angles and use the larger one, because few wreaths are perfectly circular.
- 3
Measure the depth
From the back of the frame to the highest point of the decoration. On a wreath with a bow, the bow is almost always the highest point and the number that decides the container.
Diameter to container size
Measured wreath diameter, required container, and the published depth available| Measured diameter | Container to buy | Published depth | Example |
|---|
| 12-16 in | 24 in | 7 in | Zober 24 |
| 18-20 in | 24 in | 7 in | Zober 24 |
| 22-26 in | 30 in | 7.4 in | Zober 30 |
| 28-32 in | 36 in | 10 in | Elf Stor 36 |
| 34-44 in | 48 in | 10 in | Elf Stor 48 |
The five-to-six-inch margin in that table is not padding for its own sake. It is what keeps the outer tips off the container wall. A wreath compressed at its outer edge for ten months comes out flattened on that side and does not spring back, because the tips are the thinnest and least resilient part of the whole object.
The depth trap
Diameter gets all the attention and depth is where the actual damage happens. A flat, sparse wreath is three inches deep and fits anything. A wreath with a large ribbon bow can be eight inches deep, and every container in this ranking except the two Elf Stors publishes less than that.
If your wreath has a bow, either buy for the depth — which usually means going up another size class — or take the bow off and store it flat separately. Taking the bow off is free and is what we would do, and it is the same reasoning as taking hooks off ornaments before they go in the box.
If you own several
Households that decorate seriously often own a front door wreath, a back door wreath, and a set of small window wreaths. Buying one container per wreath is expensive and wasteful for the small ones.
A better arrangement: one correctly sized container for the large front-door wreath, and the small window wreaths stacked with tissue between them inside a single rigid bin. A 27 gallon Stacker publishing 20 1/8 by 14 1/8 inches inside takes several 12-inch wreaths flat. See bins by capacity for the interior figures.