Wedding Dress Preservation and Cleaning
Q: Real quick question for the team—anyone have any strong opinions about wedding dress preservation and cleaning? I’ve been married for eighteen months and still haven’t gotten my beautiful lace gown cleaned after my awesome Virginia barn wedding (read: dirt). Shame… It might be too late, but I hope better late than never. Any suggestions on locations/online services/definitely-stay-away-from-X-company? How much do these services cost (and how much is too much to pay)? I figured if anyone would know, it would be you all.
Sincerely,
a loyal reader of 3+ years
Q: Can you tell me how to cheaply, sanely clean and store my wedding dress? I think I’d like to keep it around but don’t want to pay crazy dry cleaning fees or have it professionally preserved. It’s somewhat dirty and there is a rip in the back… do I even need to clean and repair it? Can I just buy a cardboard box from the Container Store and fold it in with some tissue paper? I don’t have a clear idea of what I’d like to do with it in the future (with anything), but I’d like a better storage solution than having it hanging, wrapped in a plastic bag, from a pole in the basement next to the water heater.
Thank you!
Tell us: how DID you DEAL WITH WEDDING DReSS CLEANING AND PRESERVATIOn? Did you shorten it and wear it again? Did you just go to the local dry cleaner? Did you spot clean it à la Downton Abbey? Then, send us your burning questions to questions at apracticalwedding dot com and we’ll do our best to get you #LazyGirl answers.
Note: We had another (related) question posted in the comment thread, and pulled it (and emailed it to questions at apracticalwedding dot com), so it can be answered on a dedicated post. This is comment moderation JUST for the sake of organization. If we have answers to questions posted on unrelated threads, none of us will ever be able to find them again. So email us your Q’s! We want to help you answer them. Real organized like.
