Tips & Reasons to Preserve Your Wedding Dress
From the moment you realize just what it means to get married, you dream of your gown. From the time you're a little girl, you imagine what you will look like on your wedding day. You might change your mind a time or to – or ten – but the thought of your gown will cross your mind more than once. Every wedding you attend, every bride you see, and every gown you encounter will make you think about how you might look when you exchange vows with the man of your dreams. Perhaps you'll go for a fairy-tale princess look, or maybe you're a romantic type who prefers something a little boho luxe.
You could be the kind of bride who prefers something dreamy and lovely or a traditional bride who wants her gown perfect, her something borrowed, and her something blue. Whatever you prefer, you will shine on your wedding day. You will stun the crowd who comes to see you wed, and your future husband will greet you with tears in his eyes as you walk down the aisle in the dress that was made just for you.
You'll wear the gown with pride all day, and you'll feel a momentary moment of sadness when it's time to take it off. This is the dress you've spent your life dreaming of, and you'll never wear it again. What now? Do you just stick it back in its garment bag in the back of a closet, store it in the attic in a box, or forget about it? You spent so much time thinking about it, so many hours trying it on, and so much money to make it yours. You owe it to yourself to preserve your beautiful gown for years to come. You might not know now what you will do with it, but one day an idea so lovely will hit you, you'll be glad you chose to preserve your gown just for this moment. After all the effort that comes with a wedding, wedding gown preservation can keep all of those memories alive.
Check us out for wedding dress preservation box information.
Is Wedding Dress Preservation Worth It?
Is gown preservation worth it? One question we see asked quite a bit is if wedding dress preservation is really worth it. Maybe your gown has been sitting around a while, hanging in your closet or maybe you just purchased your wedding dress in anticipation of your upcoming big day. The question is not whether it's worth it to preserve your gown but rather is it worth the chance that your gown may yellow and fray if you don't have it preserved.
Should I Do Wedding Dress Preservation?
One of the few things you'll be able to save from your wedding day is the dress. Gown preservation offers a multitude of benefits, such as the opportunity to pass down your gown to future generations and potentially create a family tradition. In a practical sense, wedding gown preservation makes storing your dress that much easier. Wedding dress preservation can be eco-friendly, eliminates the risk of the fabric yellowing or stretching, and prevents future damage from stains or elements.
Wedding dress styles have a tendency to come and go out of style over the years. From plunging necklines to sleeves to bustles, the current "in" style tends to come around full circle. Wouldn't it be great if when your daughter or granddaughter's big day came around, the dress you wore on your wedding would be back in style? What better way for them to honour you on their wedding day by wearing the same gown that you were married in. Having your gown cleaned and preserved is the only way to be sure your gown looks just as beautiful on their wedding day as it did for yours.
Have preservation done if you want your dress's beauty to last long term, and you aren't planning on taking it out of its box anytime soon. Dresses that aren't preserved can yellow over time. Even if you don't think you'll pass along the gown to a daughter one day, you may want it as a keepsake. Some brides choose to repurpose their gown into a veil, baby blanket or christening gown.
Not Your Average Dry-Cleaning
It's important to note that wedding gown preservation is not the same as dry cleaning a garment. To preserve your wedding gown, a specialist is necessary to create a treatment plan that takes into account your dress's fabric, stitching, details, and any stains on the gown. The specific treatment plan will renew your dress without harming the delicate fabric.
Some dry cleaners will offer wedding dress cleaning, but that doesn't necessarily mean the services are the same as preservation. Before committing to the preservation, do your research on the various methods and the one(s) used by the specific cleaner you plan on using.
Curious how much all this will cost you? Check out our blog on how much dress cleaning and preservation will cost.
Wedding gowns are made of delicate materials
Let's face it, and wedding dresses aren't exactly built for wear and tear. With most gowns being constructed from materials such as lace, taffeta, and silk, your gown must be properly stored over the years. Leaving your gown hanging in the closet for years is one of the most damaging places you can store your gown. The material gets stretched and damaged around the hanger and material can get frayed or damaged as the gown is brushed against and moved around. By storing your gown in a proper preservation box, seated on a bust to keep the gown's original form, you are protecting those delicate materials from wear and tear as your dress ages over the years.
Why You Should Preserve Your Wedding Gown
To prevent irreversible future fabric damage
The process of preserving your wedding gown is a delicate one. The benefit, however, is worthwhile. When you allow us to help you with your preservation, you not only clean the dress of all the stains and spills it might have handled on your wedding day, you also prevent any future damage from occurring. By storing your dress yourself, you aren't going to get the same quality. It runs the risk of being damaged by water or moisture that gets into your garment bag, by little hands at home if the kids find it, and by the elements as a whole.
With our state-of-the-art preservation system, this is not a problem. We not only clean your dress, but we also store it in a preservation box that prevents the elements from ever reaching your gown. This provides you with the peace of mind that your dress is protected from anything that might happen for years to come.
It's never been more affordable to preserve your gown
About 20 or so years ago, wedding dress preservation was reserved for the upper class as the process required special machines not normally provided by local dry cleaners. With the advent of the internet and mail-in wedding dress preservation, the service has been made available to all at a very affordable price. Mail-in preservation is safe, insured and guaranteed for over 100 years. Preserving your dress with a mail-in service will still save you $ 100's off having your gown preserved locally, and in many cases, local dry cleaners will outsource their cleaning to the same service online companies use with a steep markup.
If you're still not convinced you to want to preserve your gown, let us help you make the decision. Your fears, concerns, and worries are about to be debunked, removed, and altered, so you understand just how important it is to preserve the dress of your dreams. Our favourite reasons to preserve your wedding gown following your wedding will have you making arrangements for our preservation services before the day is over.
To allow your children to honour you by wearing your beautiful gown again at their wedding
Perhaps you've yet to have the pleasure of welcoming children in your new marriage, but you very well might at some point. When this day comes, you might imagine your little girl walking down the aisle on her very own wedding day wearing the dress you wore on yours. It might seem silly and outdated, but it's not. Your dress might be what she wants to wear. Vintage gowns are more than a little popular, and a truly timeless gown lasts decades.
If your gown is a designer, timeless, and sentimental, your daughter might want to wear it. She might not, of course, but the idea she might one day wear your gown down the aisle is touching. If she decides this is something she wants to do, now is the time to look into wedding dress preservation for her so she may have that option. At least you'll spend the rest of her life knowing you gave this option to her by preserving your gown in case she decides it's what she wants.
A professional cleaning will increase the value of your gown if you ever decide upon selling it
Let's be honest here. Most women decide to sell their wedding gown at some point. You're never going to wear it again, and you probably assume your daughter will never wear it. There is nothing wrong with that. If you want to make some of your money back by selling your designer gown following your wedding, keeping it preserved gives you that option. Trust us when we say this is not something you'll do right away.
It might take you years to decide you want to sell your gown. It's a sentimental piece of your life, and parting with it isn't something on your to-do list right now. But one day, it might be. If this is in your future, you might decide you want to go ahead and see about making it happen. By preserving your gown, you can ensure it's in mint condition. You can ask more for it, make another bride's day, and know she's getting something beautiful and impeccable.
A lovely designer gown will increase in value with preservation, which is all you can ask for. A perfect gown goes up in value rather than down. Brides who want to buy your dress are willing to pay more for it when it's been perfectly preserved with no stains or imperfections. That's an investment right there.
It gives you the opportunity to loan your gown to a friend, family member, or a bride in need
If the idea of loaning your gown to a friend or family member seems strange, remove that thought from your mind. It might seem strange, but you never know what might happen. If there is a terrible natural disaster and your sister loses her gown to it just days before her wedding, how amazing will it feel to pull out your perfectly preserved gown, so she has a dress to wear on the happiest day of her life following something awful?
It's not a farfetched idea, though we never want anything like that to happen. Another situation in which you might want to loan your gown to someone else occurs when someone is in need. How about the woman you meet at church who lost everything and needs a gown for her wedding? Or the woman who wants to wed the man of her dreams, but she must do it tomorrow before he is sent overseas for his job for a year? Preserving your gown can make you a hero.
To create a "living memory" of your wedding day that you can share with future generations
With the traditional wedding gown preservation kit, you'll have a showpiece to remember your wedding day with. The cake only lasts a year in the fridge, and you'll eat it on your anniversary. Your photos will last a lifetime in their own personal beauty, but they don't give you the option to touch your gown and relieve the amazing memories that come along with dancing the night away in this lovely gown.
With this kit, you can stare at your dress as often as you want. You can put your hands on it and have a tangible reminder of the happiest day of your life right in the palm of your hands. If that's not what dreams are made of, we don't know what dreams are made of. This is a perfect opportunity for you to create a living memory of something so lovely, and there's no reason to pass this up.
To ensure there are no invisible stains on your gown that could cause future damage
There's an old saying that what you don't know can't hurt you, but that's not true when it comes to your wedding gown. You might not realize it has deodorant stains on it, or that someone spilled a little something like white wine down the front as they hugged you on your wedding night. These stains are invisible, but they are damaging. Over time, they begin to cause your dress to deteriorate. The fabric of your gown was not meant to withstand the test of chemicals, additives, or anything else long-term, and it will begin to break down.
MyDressBox is are wedding dress cleaning and preservation specialists servicing all major cities in Australia and New Zealand, including Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart, Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sunshine Coast, Wollongong, Geelong and many more.
Imagine opening your garment bag for your daughter one day only to realize the parabens in your deodorant caused the arms of your dress to deteriorate and break down. It's a heartbreaking realization for many women when they one day open their gowns again, and it's not one you must live with. You can preserve your gown by cleaning it to remove all invisible stains to preserve it for the rest of your life. Do yourself this favour.
To give your gown a safe place to be stored without risking yellowing fabric or stretch
Did you know hanging your wedding gown can destroy it? It can make it difficult for you in the future. It will eventually begin to droop on the hanger because the weight of the gown is not meant to spend decades supported by this. Your dress might easily stretch, and it can be devastating to you.
What you get when you preserve your gown is a solid location in which to keep your dress. This keeps it from being exposed to moisture, which can cause yellowing. We even send you gloves with which to handle your gown to prevent it from becoming further damaged as you examine our work. Our goal is to ensure you don't one day open your gown only to find it's yellowed as the fabric aged with the elements or that it's stretched with the hanger on which it sits. Our preservation boxes make this impossible.