Dry Cleaners and Brides Share Wedding Dress Storage Tips

June is National Family Month, and according to the National Association of Wedding Ministers, it is also the month when couples are most likely to start their families by getting married. The average couple spends 16 months engaged and seven to 12 months planning the wedding, which typically costs around $22,000. After putting all that money and work into the wedding, most brides are eager to store photos, videos, and keepsakes that will help them to remember the special day.

These days, many brides blog about the process of planning their weddings, getting advice and ideas from other brides-to-be. Some couples are doing online polls of their proposed guests, asking family and friends what they would like the wedding to be like. According to the 2009 Real Weddings Study, sponsored by The Knot (a wedding planning website) and WeddingChannel.com, many couples are drawn to the idea of planning a wedding online because they see it as ecofriendly -- it reduces the amount of paper that must be wasted in the process.

One aspect of a wedding that can’t really be reproduced online is the wedding dress -- which, after photos, may be the most commonly saved and stored keepsake of a wedding day. But professional dry cleaner Donna Beck commented in the May 30 Columbia Daily Tribune that fewer brides are preserving and saving their dresses these days. Those who do want to save their dresses as keepsakes, however, can expect a dry cleaner to take the following steps to prepare the dress for storage:

• Inspect the dress for spots and stains, and pretreat any areas that need it.
• Run the dress through the dry-cleaning machine, using fresh solvent to keep the dress bright.
• Press or iron the dress until it is wrinkle-free as well as stain-free.
• Pack the dress between layers of acid-free paper (ordinary tissue paper could damage or yellow the fabric of a dress being stored for a long time), and place it in an acid-free cardboard box. Most wedding dress storage boxes have a cellophane window on the top, to display the front of the dress.
• Place the wedding dress’ storage box inside a sturdy case that can be used to transport it and to give it additional protection.
• Even after the dress has been cleaned and pressed, Beck told the Daily Tribune, it can be taken out of the box, tried on and admired, and repacked. “As long as you pack it back with that same tissue and box, you’ll be fine,” she explained.

Many brides like to pack a tiara, garter, and other items from the wedding day in the same box with the dress. If a dress is stored carefully, it can last for more than 50 years without yellowing, and can still be in almost new condition if a family member or friend should then choose to wear it to another wedding.

Sources used:

Anderson, Molly Logan. “Creative couples put modern spin on weddings.” The Dodge Globe. May 24, 2010.

Buchholz, Cindy Card. “Wedding planners juggle day of details.” Rapid City Journal. May 31, 2010.

Dohack, Caroline. “Cleaning, proper storage preserve wedding memories.” Columbia Daily Tribune. May 30, 2010.