Wedding Dress Cleaning

And now the celebrations are over.......
Why should I clean my dress? I’m not going to wear it again!

Take yourself right back to the beginning of the relationship you have shared with your wedding dress – recall how you felt when you knew it was “the one” and then finally, how you felt on the day, completely transformed into a bride. Look at your dress now, after the day – whatever the weather on your wedding day, you dress will be stained and marked from the experience..

Once the wedding is over brides are divided, to keep or to sell? Either decision would require the dress to be professionally cleaned to prevent damage and deterioration occurring or to improve the possibility of securing a sale.

If you are planning to sell your dress and don’t have it cleaned you could find yourself having to sell for a lower price than you feel your dress deserves.  Brides are getting increasingly frugal and won’t just see a bargain, but adding all the cleaning and alteration costs and possibly repairs may make it more beneficial for them to buy a brand new dress. Advertising your dress for sale in a clean condition will eliminate negativity and generate more interest, hopefully resulting in selling for a higher price and justifing your cleaning costs.

If you are planning to keep your wedding dress it is essential to have it professionally cleaned and finally stored in a pH neutral environment which means there is no contact with acid or alkali which would cause yellowing or discolouration as the years go by. Our Boxed Bridal range of preservation boxes are the perfect home. See the range of exclusive designs on our PRESERVATION BOX page.

Wedding dresses range enormously in style, design, fabric etc and certainly present the biggest challenge to the dry cleaning profession.  A challenge that the Boxed Bridal team are delighted to rise to.  Never deterred by obscure labeling and often using our professional judgement and drawing on our experience, our finished results are generally very good, and we are proud to say, sometimes, even astonishing!

Wedding dress cleaning is high risk.  It is not just probably the most expensive dress you will buy, but certainly one that will carry the most amount of sentimental value.  The utmost care and attention is required every step of the way.  Our personal attention will give you confidence that your dress will receive all of this and more, and every endeavour will be used to restore it to its original condition.

When we first receive a dress, possibly even when meeting you, the bride in person, (but often a Mum, who has had the dress left with her after the wedding and the happy couple are on honeymoon!) an intensive pre-clean inspection is carried out – to identify any damage, and analysis the types of stains and possible risks involved.  We always anticipate cleaning a dress at least twice to achieve success.  Some pre-treatment of stains before the first clean may be carried out but generally our attention is focussed on the second clean with intensive spot treatment and serious attention to the train and the hemline, inside the bodice where “invading” rose petal confetti may have resulted in pinkish colour staining, along with the effects of the application of fake tans, and even perspiration – believe us, even the coolest bride perspires on her wedding day!

Following the second clean, our pressing will begin.  This includes every layer of underskirt and netting before we reach the final top layers.  Nothing is left untouched.  This process enables us to identify any marks that may remain and are often not found until we reach the final panel!  After considering if we believe the stain/mark may improve further, re-cleaning will now occur wedding dresses, particularly those with heavy embellishments, are not designed to be cleaned and cleaned and this is always a consideration we have to make.  We do not concede defeat easily. 

PROFESSIONAL SEAMSTRESS - We are delighted to work with a professional seamstress, Ula Litwin.  Her work is superb and enables us to offer a repair service for significant repairs that may be required, but our own in-house service includes, as standard practice, re-securing loose sequins, stay stitching or dropped hems.

Once our cleaning and pressing process is complete and we are satisfied that the results are as perfect as we can achieve, then your dress is ready to be returned/collected by you.  If your intention is to try to sell your cleaned dress, then at this stage it will be put into a fresh new breathable Boxed Bridal zip up dress bag to keep the dress in its completed condition.  However, if your dress is being boxed for preservation we will arrange a time for you to visit us and we will personally pack your dress while you wait, enabling you to see the condition of your dress BEFORE it is put away.  Boxing takes around 20 minutes and your dress will be packed away in your chosen box, carefully wrapped between layers of acid free tissue paper along with other items you may have, such as your veil.  We generally pack the veil inside the bodice of the dress, making it easy to get to as this is often something you may want to lend to a future bride. If you are tempted in the future to take your dress out of the box and have trouble getting it successfully repacked, give us a call to book an appointment and we will be happy to do it for you.

We welcome enquiries from other dry cleaners who would prefer not to have the responsibility of actually cleaning wedding dresses themselves but are keen to offer a professional service from a reputable and experienced service provider.