My wedding was just over 6 months ago (um, creeping up on 7 months actually) and I haven't gotten my wedding gown cleaned/preserved yet.
Is this super terrible? It's actually been in the plastic (I know, the horrors) bag I picked it up in for all this time, but I was reading about how you should never, under any circumstances, leave your wedding gown in it's plastic bag because it can't breathe. So in case you were wondering, it's now people, animals, AND wedding gowns that shouldn't be putting plastic bags over their mouths for fear of suffocation.
So today I pulled my wedding gown out of it's plastic bag. I lined a huge Rubbermaid bin with a clean white bed sheet and laid my gown in the bin. Then I flipped the excess sheets up over the top to cover up the dress. Hopefully it can breathe a little better.
That being said, I do have an actual question. I've been emailing different companies that preserve wedding gowns and actually just heard back from J. Scheer & Co. I filled out an online form on Thursday and a very nice woman called me back on Friday morning.... to let me know that they'd take excellent care of my dress, cleaning it with the finest organic solvents and preserve it for future generations to enjoy. All for the low, low price of between $395 and $495 depending on how dirty it is.
Kill me now. I have delusional thoughts of my (future) daughter wanting to wear my gown and having a seamstress put a little ribbon with my (future) daughter's initials and wedding date right below the ribbon I had sewn in with my initials and wedding date. Part of me says $500 is a small price to pay for having my wedding gown cleaned and preserved for my daughters. The other part says "Are you f'ing kidding me? $500 for your dress to sit in a box for the next 100 years? Kill yourself."
And so, the question remains - did you have your wedding gown dry cleaned or preserved? How much did you pay? What were the results? Any recommendations? I heard WedClean does a good job... what's up with them? Help me....
One last thought - some companies will preserve your gown and then vacuum seal it in a box with a guarantee that becomes void if you ever open the box. J. Scheer & Co. will preserve your gown and box it up in archival quality paper, but they don't seal up the box. They actually encourage you to open the box every so often to check the gown, and they guarantee the gown forever... even after you open the box a hundred times just because you want to look at it. The other thing about J. Scheer & Co. is shipping is included in the price. They are physically located in New York and work with FedEx to pack the dress, ship it, insure it, and get it back to you. It seems like a good option (Martha Stewart thinks so anyway), but $495 is a lot of money.
Thoughts?
18 years of Henry
7 months ago
7 comments:
Kate
Check out a local cleaner, that's what I did with Kim's and it wasn't $400!! That's rididculous...but you should definitely have it preserved...TTY
Southern Aunt
oops....sorry 'bout the spelling...hate that...one too many d's
Southern Aunt
save your money for a baby.
I have been married for 3 1/2 years and my dress is still hanging in the bag in the guest closet. That is really bad, huh? I got a great deal on my dress, and can't seem to justify paying that much! Then again, I am really cheap.
And so I hate to burst a bubble but I have a knack for doing that--have it preserved (for cheap) but don't count on any daughter wearing it. They'll probably want their own style or have some other reason for not wearing Mom's dress.
I used the Wedding Gown Preservation Company. Shipping included, it cost $170. You can open the box any time to check it. They also email you when they receive the dress, email you to let you know when it is cleaned and being shipped back to you, etc. Hope that helps!
All that money to preserve your dress so you can have a good laugh when daughter tries on your outdated dress.
(No offense. It happened to me. I laughed too, thinking of Napoleon Dynamite's comment, "I like your sleeves. They're real big.")
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