Many brides want a permanent memento from their wedding day. Consider your wedding dress. You might have been lucky, walked into a boutique and seen the dress you knew you were going to wear. But there might have also been a prolonged, painstaking search before you found it. You wear it on your big day, but then what? It's not something that should be banished to the back of the wardrobe for many years, slowly succumbing to age. This is why preserving your wedding dress can give you a lovely souvenir, even allowing you to pass the dress onto your children for their wedding, in as pristine a condition as the day you wore it. So how exactly can you preserve a wedding dress?
Cleaning the Dress
Professional wedding dress cleaning is the first step, and this is not necessarily the same as dry cleaning. It was only worn once, but there will be stains, even though you might not be able to see them. Dresses with a train would have been dragged along the ground. Less obvious stains can be caused by perspiration or even spilled food and drinks, which can cause the fabric to degrade if not promptly and professionally removed. What was an imperceptible drop of a spilled drink on your wedding day can result in significant discolouring and degradation further along the track. The best type of cleaning will depend on the design of your dress, as well as its fabric and stitching.
Storing the Dress
The next step is storing the dress. While fitting it with a plastic dust cover and hanging it in your wardrobe will keep the dress safe, it won't stop the aging process, which is the point of preserving a wedding dress. So how should the dress be stored?
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Some companies offer an actual preservation service, wherein the dress is placed in an airtight container (which can be transparent or at least has a clear section which allows you to still see the dress). All the oxygen is then removed from the container so that even the very air won't be able to age the dress.
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You can also purchase a DIY preservation container and do the job yourself. The end result should be sufficient to keep the dress preserved, but it might not be as impeccably arranged in the container than if you had a professional do the job.
Preserving the dress gives you a wonderful memento of your big day, and while a wedding dress represents a significant financial value, you will also want to preserve its sentimental value.
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