The year is 2069. Your beautiful granddaughter plans to say “I do” to the man of her dreams. As the family prepares for the wedding day, your usually cheery baby seems a little downcast.
Upon probing her, you find that no bridal shop could get her the perfect wedding dress. The discussion takes you back to your wedding day and how glorious you felt in your gown. Then you realized you had kept it all these years for this moment.
You lead your grandbaby to your room, whip out your now-vintage wedding dress, and hand it to her. And oh, the look on her face! Already, she has started to chatter about how she would redesign it.
Honestly, what greater joy is there?
Some brides want this, while others want a souvenir. Whatever the reason for wanting to keep your dress, you can never go wrong with preserving it.
Some brides want this, while others want a souvenir. Whatever the reason for wanting to keep your dress, you can never go wrong with preserving it.
Related: Wedding Gift Etiquette: The Art of Group Gifting
The ABCs of Preserving Your Wedding Dress
A proper wedding dress preservation process caters to every dirt spot on a dress, even the invisible stains. This process involves a few storage basics:
- Properly clean the dress. You may dry clean or wet clean, depending on the care routine of the dress.
- Apply the prescribed preservation techniques. You will need to understand the structure of the fabric to know which procedure to use.
- Wrap the dress in acid-free paper and store it in an airtight box. If, on the other hand, the dress is stored in a breathable box, it may be susceptible to the impurities mixed with the air.
- Keep the box in a preservation-friendly environment. The ideal environment is one that is not prone to humidity and temperature fluctuations. An example is your closet.
- Bring out the dress periodically to assess the effectiveness of the preservation process.
What is Wedding Dress Preservation Really About?
The process of preserving wedding dresses is to clean and store them in a way that keeps the style and fabric of the dress. This makes the dress less likely to turn yellow and get old.
Experts say that a specialist in the field should take care of preserving a wedding dress because it takes a lot of technical know-how.
First, the wedding dress specialist would assess the dress to note the kind of fabric used. They would also need to register the stitching, designs, stains, etc. on the dress. The assessment would inform them of the treatment plan to administer.
The specialists can then clean the dress without harming the delicate fabric.
While some drycleaners may swing in the direction of preserving wedding dresses, be sure to vet their services and procedures. You don’t want your gown to be dry-cleaned under the guise of preservation.
For instance, applying certain solvents used for dry cleaning to wedding gowns would be improper. It wouldn’t be smart because other solvents used for regular dry cleaning might have impurities that, if they got on your wedding dress, could hurt it or make it smell funny.
Is Drycleaning Your Wedding Dress Enough Preservation?
Stains are not uncommon with wedding dresses after the wedding reception. There is usually the overzealous aunt who smudges her makeover on the dress when she comes in for a hug or the expected body perspiration from the dance floor.
But this is not so much an issue, as a professional cleaner can make the dirt and stain disappear. Dry cleaning is the treatment of stained and soiled areas with chemicals and other cleaning agents.
Meanwhile, drycleaning and preservation should not be mistaken as the same, as they are two different activities. In fact, they are as far apart as two vertical lines that will never meet.
Drycleaning is aimed at cleaning up a dress, while preservation is geared at keeping a dress in good shape regardless of how long it has not been worn. The preservation of a wedding dress takes place after it has been cleaned.
Wedding Dress Preservation Tips
To have your wedding gown as good as new, even after two decades of walking down the aisle, take note of these proper care procedures:
Have it Cleaned on Time
In order to preserve your wedding dress, it is crucial that you have it cleaned as soon as possible. Having stains stay on the fabric for a long time makes it susceptible to oxidation, which in turn causes discoloration and aging.
Usually, wedding fabrics are made of delicate materials and degradable chemicals, and the breakdown of these can cause damage to the dress. Environmental factors or atmospheric pollutants influence the breakdown of these chemicals. So when not cleaned on time, the retained stains only hasten the process.
Understandably, you might want to jet out to your honeymoon destination immediately after the wedding reception. You could, however, have your chief bridesmaid, mother, or other family members quickly drop off the dress with the wedding dress preservation specialists.
Meanwhile, if you must delay cleaning the dress for one reason or another, you should store it in a cool, dark, and dry environment. Putting the clothes away this way will slow the oxidation process down a lot, so the damage won’t be too bad.
If you must wait at all, ensure this waiting period is at most six months before having dry cleaners work on your dress.
Pay Attention to the Care Instructions on Your Dress
Usually, a wedding gown would come with a care label or tag on how it should be cleaned, maintained, and preserved. These tags sometimes recommend the type of solvent to use in drycleaning the dress and the type of storage it would require. Where necessary, there would also be instructions on how to clean any delicate trim, beads, or sequins.
Some gowns can only be dry cleaned, while others may be wet cleaned. When cleaning, never resort to chemical bleach, no matter how frustrating the stain is. Chemical bleach is made of a harsh substance that will hurt the fabric’s softness and destroy it in the end.
You cannot successfully preserve your wedding gown without heeding the instructions on the care label. If you indulge in the services of wedding dress preservation companies instead, ensure that they also follow the special instructions. This is another reason why vetting your wedding gown preservation specialists is essential.
Store in a Cool, Dark, and Airtight Preservation Box
After cleaning your wedding dress on time, the next thing on the agenda is to preserve it. Preserving your wedding dress involves every activity to ensure that it is kept in good shape. This generally involves not exposing it to direct sunlight, treating it with care, etc.
In all you do, never preserve your clothes in plastic bags. This is because such bags retain moisture, and when this mixes with your dress, it will get discolored.
Instead, try working with acid-free plastic bags since that is what wedding preservation boxes are made from.
Also, wedding dress preservation specialists recommend that, after cleaning and treating your wedding dress, you store it in an airtight box. Since oxygen would hasten the oxidation, the container should be without it.
In place of the oxygen, the box should be pumped with nitrogen. The endgame of this is to prevent aging or discoloration of the dress for as long as possible.
Handle the Dress with Care
When placing your dress in storage after it has been treated, you should put on a pair of white cotton gloves. This is to prevent hand oils, sweat, and dirt from causing damage to the dress.
Always handle it properly, whether you are just storing your dress in a preservation box or taking it out after several years to examine it.
Pay extra attention if you have people around. Perfumes with a high alcohol concentration, natural body oils, lotions, nail polish, and other things can easily transfer to the fabric.
Does the Fabric Matter When Preserving a Wedding Dress? 
Every wedding fabric has its own unique properties, style of beading, and fabrication. Satin, lace, tulle, silk, and chiffon all have different textures, so it makes sense that they would need different care routines.
For reference, a wedding dress with rhinestones and silver foils will not have the same care regimen as one without. As such, if all fabrics were placed under the same care routine, some would suffer permanent damage.
These fabrics cannot even be cleaned in the same way. For instance, a chiffon wedding gown can be dry cleaned but not a tulle. Also, it is advised that laces be hand-washed with cold water, but satin can either be dry-cleaned or hand-washed.
Because different fabrics have different qualities, the way they are stored would have to depend on the type of fabric.
What is the Cost of Preserving a Wedding Dress?
As earlier stated, there is more to preserving wedding gowns than cleaning them. Preservation requires more skill, specialization, and state-of-the-art equipment. Due to this, the cost of preservation would usually range from $200 to $1000.
This price, meanwhile, is not uniform across wedding dress preservation companies since varying factors determine it. From the fine details of a wedding gown to the degree of stain damage, unique offerings like preservation boxes and wedding dress preservation companies are influenced by different reasons.
Related: Wedding Gift Etiquette for Bride and Groom
How Should I Store a Preserved Wedding Dress?
People work with different storage techniques, although the most common one is wrapping the gown in acid-free tissue paper. It must not be colored tissue paper so that no color seeps into the dress in the long run.
Some people, meanwhile, make use of storage boxes made of fluted polypropylene. These boxes are used for the moisture protection they offer. They are especially resistant to fluctuations in temperature and humidity.
It is also advisable to place layers of tissue paper between the dress and the hanger to avoid creasing. Likewise, stuffing the bust of the dress would help maintain its entire shape.
After this, place the dress in an acid-free container and store it in a cool place with no access to direct sunlight. Whatever safehouse you choose for your clothes should have relative humidity or a climate that is regulated for normal living conditions.
You should know to avoid places with fluctuating temperature conditions, like basements or attics. If the weather changes all the time, condensation could form and make it hard to store a wedding dress.
Wedding dress preservation specialists advise you to check preserved dresses periodically, say every two to three years. This is to make sure that your dress has not been exposed to visible stains or has suffered permanent creasing.
FAQs
How Long Can a Wedding Dress Be Stored?
A wedding dress can be stored for however long you want, depending on the preservation procedures applied. If your preservation specialist is the type that gives a lifetime guarantee, be rest assured that you can pass down the gown even until the 7th generation.
What is the Best Way to Store a Wedding Dress?
The best way to store a dress is to place it in an acid-free box and keep the parcel in a cool, dry place without extreme temperatures.
Can You Wear a Wedding Dress After It Has Been Preserved?
Definitely! One of the common reasons brides choose to preserve their wedding dresses is so they can be worn by a family member sometime in the future.
Is it Worth it to Get a Wedding Dress Preserved?
Whether you want to keep your perfect dress to yourself as a souvenir or make an heirloom out of it, you can never go wrong with preservation. Without a doubt, looking at the dress some 50 years down the line would fill your heart with warmth.
Final Thoughts
Seeing a bride say her vows in her restyled grandma’s dress is an incredible sight to behold. But achieving that kind of cool takes a lot of effort and treatment plans. This article gives you an insight into what it entails.
Use this information, which is right at your fingertips (literally), and who knows, your granddaughter might thank you for it.
