The other day, reader Kourtney asked about preserving her fabulous silk wedding dress. Reader La BellaDonna quickly offered some wonderful and furthermore practical advice (don’t I have the most fantastic readership ever?) which included a link to a list of companies that supply acid free paper. I thought everyone should have a chance to read her advice, particularly because silk can be a rather temperamental fabric.
Now, there are a boatload of preservation kits out there, of the “do it yourself” variety and the “have someone else do it for you” variety. I think I’d prefer the latter. But how to find a competent pro to handle what is likely the most important and meaningful garment you’ll ever own?
The easiest way to find a company that will treat your dress right is to ask your seamstress or just a seamstress. Or contact the International Fabricare Institute. They know what they’re talking about. Consider making arrangements before the wedding, so you can get your gown cleaned and on its way to being preserved lickety-split. Even if you’re using a home preservation kit, however,
Waiting until after the honeymoon to take protective precautions for your wedding gown is waiting too long, according to 1800bride2b. Stains that you may not even see, such as from perspiration, will immediately begin to take their toll on the delicate fabric. Ideally, you should make arrangements to have your gown professionally dry cleaned as soon as possible after your wedding day. Have the gown taken to a reputable cleaner who will also inspect zippers and buttons that may need to be repaired or tightened. You should make a special note for the cleaners about any spots or stains, particularly on the train, that may need special attention.
What then? Do you fold or hang? As La BellaDonna notes, hanging puts pressure on the gown and can loosen or even tear fabric over time. Folded gowns should be refolded along different lines a few times a year to prevent tears due to stresses in the fabric. Acid free tissues and boxes are a MUST because all wood and forms of wood pulp secrete acids that can stain and damage fabrics. Plastics are also a no-no.
Your wedding gown needs air to circulate through the fibers or it will eventually start to rot. For this reason, you should not wrap your gown in plastic for a long period of time. Also, some plastics produce textile-destroying hydrochloric acid when in contact with moisture for long periods of time.
Once you’ve lovingly and carefully packaged your gown (or had someone else do it for you), it should be stored somewhere it won’t be exposed to extreme shifts in temperature or humidity. That means no basements, no hot and dry attics, and no laundry rooms. Too much moisture in the air can cause mold and mildew to grow in places they are not welcome – i.e. on your gown. Light can cause the fabric of your gown to become discolored and even disintegrate!
If you truly want to preserve your dress for decades and decades, take all the precautions you can. I have experiences the pain of improper dress storage first hand. I once had a beautiful baby blue ballgown that developed inexplicable baby pink spots and little holes because of my carelessness. Don’t let this happen to you.
Maybe this makes me a horribly unsentimental bride, but I plan to get mine cleaned and then donate it to a second-hand store. I would much rather give someone else a chance to get some use out of it than keep it, and I consider the purchase price to be a sunk cost I don’t intend to recover (i.e. I’d rather give it away than eBay it).
Another option:
http://www.makingmemories.org/bridesagainstbreastcancer.html
The dresses donated are gorgeous and very well cared for – definitely a great a place to donate your dress or great resource for a beautiful dress of your own.
Oh, I’m definitely going to feature links to places that accept donated dresses for charity and so forth in a future post. There are lots and all of them benefit wonderful causes 🙂
What a cool idea, SJ–thanks for the link!
Um, what if I want to keep mine and use it again? Not as weird as it sounds, knee-length, sheath-ish, NOT white or princessy. Can I just store it in my closet as long as I get it cleaned after the wedding/party? I can’t see going into my acid-free-papered storage box every time I want to wear it to somebody else’s wedding (or whatever the occasion may be). Any hints?
I may end up donating mine. My mother is to this day upset that hers was ruined before I got a chance to wear it — although she takes it in good graces when I point out that our styles are pretty different, and we all (my mother, my grandmother, I) agreed on the dress I chose.
But it is driving me half nuts that I get to wear this gorgeous dress once — and then what? Can’t wear it again. Based on prior experience, it’s not necessarily worth it to store it for my daughter. Donation seems like the best way to go, although I’ve been idly wondering if I could hand it over to a talented dressmaker and have it reworked into something I could wear again.
I think I fall in the unsentimental bride category. I do not plan to spend an extra $1,000 to have my dress “preserved.” I keep seeing all these crazy 80’s Victorian-style gowns on ebay that no one will ever ever buy — I think ebay is where old wedding dresses go to die. I may recycle my dress, pick it apart and use it for quilting or pillows or handkerchiefs for something.
I also don’t feel like lugging it around–the wedding is in Iowa and we will have just moved to California (that is, after having taken the California bar, closed on a house, and moved all our stuff from Michigan…oy, but that’s another story of an insane summer!).
I agree with A.L….the cost of getting it preserved professionally is something that really turns me off to the whole thing. I think if I were the kind of person who saves things for purely sentimental reasons, I’d keep it, but the idea of having someone else get some use out of it appeals to me a lot more than do the upsides of hanging on.
That’s a great idea, A.L. In a way, you’re preserving your dress by making it into a bunch of useful things.
Yay! I am so delighted for the answers to my question! I am also very grateful to Never & to La BellaDonna for the speed & precision of those answers. And thank you for the compliments – I was delighted with my dress, & still am.
As well, my temporary act of indecision (having the gown lay across a cotton sheet on the spare bed in a darkened room with NO CATS) has been perhaps not the right choice thus far, but it’s not a terrible choice either.
So now, heading up my shopping list – acid free paper & an appropriate box – I already have mucho lavender to keep the evil bugs away!
I’m a sentimental pack-rat, so the option of not keeping it never even occurred to me. It’s also a memento of our pre-honeymoon – I had it made in Vietnam. As well, should I ever have a chance to attend the Academy Awards, I have the perfect thing to wear!
I just “preserved” my gown after a year and a half of marriage… I was of half a mind to have it cut down and re-dyed (it’s a bias cut sheath), but after so much time hemming and hawing I finally decided to put it away. I got a very reasonably priced DIY preservation kit rather than bothering with the professionals. There was no big poofy skirt to deal with, so it was easy and very frugal. I’m still torn on whether to have it re-made into a cocktail dress, but at least it’s safe and clean while I’m deciding.
Think I’m with A.L. Mine was a two-piece, and I may bring out the bottom half & wear it w/something not weddingish, and wear the top with something similarly unmatrimonial. May even hack off the sleeves & shorten the skirt. Now that my creative juices are flowing, who knows?! I may even order some custom-made wedding-dress plush, and give one to each of the kids…
Ladies, the gowns are yours; of course you may do whatever you like with them! This can range from:
1. Have them stored professionall;
2. Prepare and store them yourselves, with an eye to a daughter/niece/etc. wearing it some day;
3. Sell on ebay;
4. Sell via consignment shop;
4. Donate to worthy cause;
5. Donate to Smithsonian (last I heard, the Smithsonian has to accept donations, whether or not it ever displays them);
6. Wear once a year for an anniversary;
7. Have custom-altered into two separate parts, or a new dress/special blouse/suit (be prepared to pay a nice hefty fee for this, as it is often a bigger pain in the patoot than making a dress from scratch), or alter it yourself;
8. Utilize in a different way: you could use some of it to make a christening gown for offspring;
9. Have a custom-made doll dressed in a replica of the gown, using the original fabric and trim to create it (this could be combined with #8);
10. Just plain wear it, a la Anne, above.
… there are as many options as there are brides, really. Some women would rather have the space than the dress, some women would like to preserve the dress as it is, forever. One suggestion I WOULD make: if your gown was/is being custom-made for you, make sure you get any leftover fabric and trim from the person making the gown! This should be cleaned at the same time as your dress, and stored in the same way. If your niece/daughter/whatever is taller or heavier, she’ll be grateful for the extra fabric.
Anne, of course you can wear your dress again! Clean it and store it as you would any dress of its ilk. Is its ilk silk? If you want to help it last, clean it carefully (and sometimes this can mean washing, rather than drycleaning, but that would have to be tested on an inconspicuous area) and I would suggest turning it inside out to help keep the dye from deteriorating from light. If it’s a dress you would wear infrequently, I’d recommend keeping it in a cloth storage bag, with lavender; Mothra can be a vile problem, especially with clothes that are stored away. If you don’t know what else to do, you can can jury-rig a cloth bag out of a clean, UNSTARCHED sheet (preferably undyed). You can even store the dress flat in a cloth pillowcase, in a pinch, and steam it before using, as long as you remember where you put it in your closet.
Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, I got to have my dress preserved for a second time. The original preservation had been done locally by a dry cleaners recommended by my seamstress (total cost less than $200). For the post-flood water cleaning, I called the boutique in Houston where I’d bought the dress to find out who they recommended. Not only was the cost three times as high, but I also discovered the first cleaning had been done incorrectly and, according to the specialist, damaged the dress fabric. We waffled for a few minutes before falling on the sentimental side of the fence although we did throw the veil out and figure the gloves could manage with a regular drycleaning. Six months later, my dress was ready, wrapped in fabric with a pair of gloves on top to prevent your oils from damaging the dress should you wish to touch it.
Oh, and NtB, regarding your lamented beautiful baby blue ball gown, with its pink spots and its holes: I cannot answer for the holes, but if the gown itself was a satin, it may have changed colour through no fault of yours. There is a particular type of satin which seems to have a peculiarly fugitive dye; the blue satin I used to make my sister’s bridesmaid’s dress did the same thing, and I’ve had a couple of other satin pieces do the same thing.