Wedding dress preservation refers to a unique cleaning and packaging method that ensures your gown maintains its beauty for as long as possible. The preservation treatment helps prevent the yellowing, oxidation and molding of the gown. 

Cleaning a wedding gown is unlike cleaning any other garment. The materials are higher quality than everyday clothing, and the dress is going to go through more than the usual drycleaner is used to. Having a high-quality designer gown cleaned of dirt, champagne, and happy tears is a much larger task than pressing a dress shirt. Although some dry cleaners may offer to clean your wedding gown, you’ll want to utilize a wedding dress specialist. Luckily, our preservation service includes cleaning and repairs! Adorn Bridal provides museum quality cleaning and repairs on any loose beading. With a garment this precious, it’s best to stick with an expert.

Getting your dress professionally cleaned post-wedding ensures that any champagne, dirt, or sweat is removed from the gown. Although stains may not be immediately visible, as they set in and age, they become more prominent over time due to oxidation. While cleaning removes stains, it is best to have your dress preserved in order to prevent yellowing, browning, creasing, mold, or mildew. During the preservation process, your gown will be reviewed under UV light to identify stains that are not visible to the naked eye.  

There are a variety of reasons why brides want to preserve their wedding dresses, but they all boil down to keeping the gown in its original condition! Some women want to keep their bridal gown in case their daughter wants to wear it. Other brides choose to repurpose the gown into a veil, a vow renewal dress, or a christening gown for their children. Some brides don’t plan on reusing the dress but want to hold on to it as a cherished keepsake. You’ve invested a lot of time, money, and emotion into the gown, so it makes sense that you’d want to save it! In cases where the dress is to go untouched for a long period of time, preservation is essential.

Ideally, you should try to have your wedding dress preserved as soon as possible. Small recent stains may not be very noticeable, but as your dress ages the stains will become more prominent and harder to remove. The sooner you clean and preserve your dress, the closer the end result will be to the gown’s original condition! 

No. Our service is all that is needed to thoroughly clean and preserve your wedding gown.

Directly after the wedding you should keep your dress folded or rolled in a garment bag or clean white sheet until you can take it to a professional. Once you’ve taken your gown to an expert, there are two main styles of wedding dress preservation: boxing and bagging. Boxed preservations require that the dress be carefully folded and placed in an acid free box. Tissue paper is placed between layers to prevent creasing. Sometimes, these boxes include a clear pane on top, so your dress is visible while tucked away. Bagged preservations feature the dress hanging, similar to the method that museums utilize to display historic gowns. Be sure to avoid plastic bags, as these cause the fabric to yellow over time. This option doesn’t require the dress to be folded, which completely avoids creases, and it offers easy storage. Both options will help keep your dress looking like new, so the choice is yours! 

Keeping your dress in a clean, temperature-controlled area out of reach from children and pets will ensure that your preservation lasts as long as possible. We recommend avoiding places like your attic or cellar due to the unpredictable temperatures experienced in these rooms. Things like sunlight, humidity, and fingertip oils can cause your dress to fade, produce mildew, and become stained. Store your gown flat and facing up and be sure to keep the dress as leveled as possible when relocating it.

Absolutely! We encourage you to take your dress out of the box or bag and inspect it regularly. Remember that your skin contains oils that can damage delicate wedding dress fabric, so you must thoroughly wash and dry your hands before handling the gown. When you remove your dress, slide both hands underneath the dress and lift the entire gown out of the box. As you unfold the gown, note the way it was packaged so that you can refold it properly. 

You have two options for getting your wedding dress to us! If you’d like to bring your gown in person, you can drop it off at our Nashville store located at 209 10^th Ave S, Suite 234 or our Louisville store located at 629 East Market Street, Suite 101. If you’re not in Nashville or Louisville, we will happily send you a kit so your dress can be packaged and shipped via your local UPS store. Your Adorn Bridal gown reservation specialist will be happy to assist you in making either arrangement! 

About 95% of stains on wedding gowns that we process are removed. When a particularly difficult stain is found, the gown is cleaned to the maximum amount possible without compromising the fabric. Typical stains that can be successfully removed include mud, dirt, grass, grease, food, blood, tar, and sugar stains such as cake icing, wine and other types of beverages. 

Please take note that while all stains will be attempted to be removed without compromising the fabric of your gown, we cannot guarantee that all stains will be able to be completely removed.

The size of the preservation chest you receive depends on the size of your gown and any extra accessories you want preserved. There are 3 sizes of preservation chests available. Below are the dimensions of each as measured in inches (Length x Width X Depth)

Standard: 33″ x 19″ x 7″

Large: 33″ x 19″ x 10″

Extra Large: 33″ x 19″ x 13″

On average, it takes four to ten weeks for your gown to be cleaned, preserved, and sent back to you.