After the last glass of champagne has been drunk, the honeymoon plane landed home, the cake stored in the freezer or eaten guiltily… It’s not over! There’s more!
Clean and store it
A wedding dress all boxed up from the Heirloom Box Company
Probably the most popular option, dedicated bridal dry cleaners can clean your dress while looking after the silk and laces you so carefully chose.
There have been stories of brides who have successfully cleaned their dresses in bathtubs, but unless you know the proper cleaning methods for the fabrics of your dress, this is one task best left to the experts!
Wedding dresses are usually stored by the cleaner for preservation in one of two ways- bagged or boxed.
A box allows you to store the box on top of a wardrobe and often has a clear viewing window so you can still see inside. Acid free with special coatings the box is normally archival quality. The dress is filled out with acid free tissue paper to maintain the shape, cotton gloves can also be bought so when you handle the gown you don’t put body oils onto the gown which may stain it over time. This is a good choice if you don’t plan on looking at your dress often but still want to keep it.
A bag allows the dress to hang in your wardrobe reducing creases of time. By having the dress bagged it’s easier to view in all it’s glory. Bear in mind if you have a large dress and a small wardrobe you may run out of room to store it! Hanging a dress may also weaken any straps on the gown.
Gown preservation can start at $AU200 but can be much more expensive depending on the size and fabric of your gown. Ask your dress store for who they recommend and ensure your drycleaner has experience with bridal gowns!
Trash it!
Trash The Dress By Uber Photography
Trash The Dress is a concept that is still new to Australia but is definitely starting to snowball (Polka Dot Bride will be speaking to someone that knows all about it soon!
A nice way to rid yourself of all things wedding with some spectacular photos is what has become known as ‘Trash The Dress’. Taking you and your dress to unusual places and creating art! Depending on how much you ‘trash it’, the dress is often still fine to be cleaned and do with what you wish after the session.
Restyle It
There have been many stories of brides successfully re-modelling their gowns to wear to other events. A slimline gown with minimal detail could be dyed black and turned into an evening gown. The bodice can be removed and you’ll have a different top to wear to a ball. A good seamstress will be able to help you achieve this.
Stacia restyled her wedding gown into a short cocktail frock. (Image courtesy of Craftzine)
Sell It
This option always makes me sad, but I am fully aware not everyone is as sentimental as me! There are a few ways of selling your wedding gown
- Ebay
- Bridal Websites with classifieds
- Trading Post
- Newsletters
- Second hand wedding dress stores
It’s a good idea to have the dress cleaned before you put it up for sale – in fairness to other brides! Remember to take full length and detail shots with measurements and entertain the possibility of having potential buyers try the gown on.
Donate it
There are brides out there without hundreds of even thousands of dollars to spend on bridal gowns. In the USA there are numerous charity organisations just for this purpose (such as the I Do Foundation who sell your dress and donate the money to the charity of your choice.) but I am yet to find an Australian based one. An option is to take it to your local op shop such as the Salvation Army and see if they will take it. Alternatively list it for free on the Trading Post.
All great ideas, Ms Polka Dot!! One word of caution! Don’t have the dress preserved if you ever plan to use it again. The chemicals actually begin to eat the fabric if it is removed from the box. If you want to give it to a daughter, have it cleaned and wrapped in acid free tissue and keep it in a temperature controlled, dark place- in a bag.
Thank you so much for this! It is so hard to decide what to do, it is my dream dress and I want to be able to enjoy it forever!
Oh Oh! I want to add for your readers the following:
I worked part time in a dry cleaners, and we used to do gown preservation (acid free papers + boxed) all the time but people sometimes got a bit upset at the price and decided to go down the cheap route of simply bagging. I worked out on the counters, and saw so many really sad cases where the gowns were bagged not in proper garment bags, but the horrid plastic covers we use for regular dry cleaning!!!
My city is incredibly humid, and of course, mould inevitably builds up in these bags, often completely destroying parts of the garment. These bags are only meant to get your fresh new clothes back to your home without any grime, then promptly discarded. They should never be used for storing your special garments long term!
If anyone is going to bag and hang their garments, please make sure you buy a fabric garment bag that breathes and is the correct size for the garment it is housing! Also, pad the shoulders or straps, using garment loops to help disperse the weight.
I’m thinking about displaying my own dress splayed across a wall if we ever move out of this dingy horrid unit! I’m also going to do a food fight shoot to trash my dress. (Then I’m taking it to Leon’s dry cleaners in Brisbane!)
Be Green and Sell it.
Make some ones day and give it to a thrift shop .
Its a win win for the charity and for that next bride!
Nancy Swiezy
Newport weddings blog spot
and
A Newport Affaire
Having just celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary
December 27th, my daughter, daughters-in-law and iour guests all loved seeing my wedding dress, veil, going-away dress and one of my bridesmaid’s dress, all in beautiful condition. After living in a pillowcase in a camphor box, I am now going to have it properly packed and boxed and hope to share it all with our guests at our 50th anniversary.
Don’t be in a hurry to rid yourself of these treasures.
thank you so much for this idea..
All of your 5 options for utilising your wedding dress after the big day is over are worth considering! Some brides love to clean, press and preserve their outfit for long while other love trashing it. Trashing your wedding dress is getting popular in Australia too. Very enlightening post!
I’m thinking of selling my dress but haven’t gotten it cleaned yet (I want to clean it right before it sells so it’s really nice for the next person). Does anyone know roughly how much dry cleaning is for a dress? it’s tea length, full skirted. Justin Alexander style 8706. And does anyone have experiance with posting bulky items like that (ie, would I be better sending uncleaned to their choice of dry cleaner so they don’t need to press when received)
Also, anyone interested in it hahaha? I paid 2k for it, I’d like to get as much back as I can (I want to pay my parents back some of the cost of my wedding)