electra films blog

How to preserve your wedding dress

posted by: Karrie on 17 April 2008

The wedding day is over and you may never wear your dress again, but it is precious to you. So what do you do next?

Perfectly clean ... but for how long?

Although you will probably be very careful with your wedding dress, if you manage to keep it spotless then you are that ‘one in a million’ of brides!  It may be white, ivory or a pastel shade; it’s probably full length with a train and let’s face it, we don’t live in a dust free world.  (That’s without food and drink accidents, your niece’s affectionate chocolatey hug or your groom’s mate with 3 left feet who stands on your train!)

We always carry stain removal pads with us when we’re filming weddings and they have been very useful.  (A particular instance that springs to mind was the young page boy who wiped his hands on his dad’s white suit jacket ... straight after rubbing them on to a greasy and very dirty car wheel!) So my tip would be to have stain removal pads to hand - or of course you could book us to film you because we’ll have them with us!

Removing stains is easier the sooner it’s done, so ideally you should have planned for cleaning your gown before the wedding, and perhaps your mother or the chief bridesmaid can deliver it to be cleaned while you’re on honeymoon.  (Wedding dress shops often offer a cleaning service.)

Here’s a link to a 5 minute video by The Memories and Nostalgia Collection from I Waterman Ltd, suppliers to the Royal Household since 2001, who supply quality wedding dress boxes at a reasonable price.  The video shows you step by step how to preserve your wedding dress.

Other helpful advice can be found at ICON, The Institute of Conservation and at The National Conservation Centre.

If you have any tips on keeping your wedding dress clean - or any other useful tips for other brides then just post it using the comment box below - or email me if you are blog-shy!


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