Specialist Wedding Dress Care

The thought of getting your wedding dress cleaned may be quite daunting. After all, it probably cost you a small fortune and it holds some special memories.

           There’s four reasons to clean a dress:

1.   To preserve it so their children/grandchildren can see exactly what they wore and how lovely they looked on their wedding day

2.   You may have bought an older dress you have fallen in love with and need it cleaned before the wedding day.

3.   This is a a major stepping stone in your life and you may want to preserve a memento.

4.   You may at some point want to sell it.

To do any of these the dress must be in pretty good shape and the first step to ensuring it stays in tip-top condition is getting it cleaned and packaged correctly. Leaving it for years is a recipe for disaster. Old stains, that you may not even have noticed, can become immovable and poor packaging can often lead to oxidization, turning part of the dress yellowy-brown - which can be irreversible.

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WHY SHOULD I GET MY DRESS CLEANED?

Lets face it, you’ve probably paid a small fortune for your wedding gown; more than you’ve ever spent on another piece of clothing in your life. So what are you going to do with it once you’ve worn it? Put in back in the wardrobe, put it in the attic perhaps, keeping it for your daughter, or selling it on hoping to get a return on your initial investment.

Unfortunately, there are many, many things that can happen to your gown by not getting it cleaned:

Oxidisation – particularly applicable to invisible spills, which over time will turn brown and are very difficult, if not impossible to remove.

Yellowing – caused by storing your gown in a box which is not pH neutral or using tissue paper which is not 100% acid free. Again, impossible to remove.

Mildew – by keeping your gown in a plastic gown bag and subjecting it to fluctuations in temperature will cause the material to ‘sweat’. This will result in the material mildewing or moulding. Cleaning your gown at this stage will result in black spots being left on the material. Keeping your gown on a hanger also causes strain to shoulder seams.

Fading – not protecting your gown from sunlight will eventually cause the material to fade.

Dust – over the years dust will mark your gown.

So your gown, slowly but surely, deteriorates over the years. Don’t hesitate, then, to have your gown professionally cleaned by us. We know you’re busy and you’ll get around to doing it in a couple of weeks, but those weeks turn into a couple of months and before you know it a year has passed and those invisible stains have turned into brown marks and your gown is not looking good.

WHY SHOULD I USE A STORAGE BOX?

Using the correct box is the last step in preserving your gown. It’s pointless having it cleaned and then exposing it to light, dust, temperature fluctuations, etc. by putting it back in the wardrobe or worse still up in the attic.

The box is made from a special archival and acid-free board material. In addition to storage boxes and materials, you’ll find invaluable charts, record sheets and ideas to help you organize and record every last detail.

It protects from exposure to light and dust which will fade and mark the gown over time

It allows the material to ‘breathe’ unlike a plastic cover thereby eliminating the risk of mildew

In addition, each box also contains:

Shoe and accessories Box

Acid-free archive tissue paper (30)

Acid certificate envelope

Tags & Ribbons

A collection of records sheets and charts

It’s a beautiful and romantic way to preserve your memories

Guaranteed Stain Removal?– a word of warning –

No matter what a dry cleaner says, it is impossible to guarantee to remove all stains and marks. A good dry cleaner can achieve excellent results but will also know when to stop before damaging the dress.

In cases of ''guaranteed stain removal'', the coloured part of the stain may be gone but you may find that the fabric has been bruised, delustered and the area where the stain was could be much more noticeable than before.

The same caution should also be applied to preservation guarantees.

You can only do so much to preserve your gown in near perfect condition, all of which is mentioned in this website.

Boxed acid free packaging of a clean dress provides a safe protected environment, but a variety of external factors and impurities within the fabric of the dress may prevent perfect preservation.

Bewary of dry cleaners offering long guarantees. We have heard of companies offering preservation guarantees of up to 30 years. Unless the company has been trading for as long as their methods and products and they have seen gowns after being stored for the full guarantee period, then their promise is worthless.

The only guarantee we can give you is that:

We will do our very best for your wedding gown