You’ve spent hours, days, weeks, maybe months looking for the perfect dress for your wedding day.  Once found, now all of your energy & efforts might be focused on the ceremony specifics and celebration details of the big day.  You probably haven’t thought yet about what you’ll do with your dress after the wedding.

If you haven’t thought that far and your immediate goal is to just make it to the reception, let us put a little bug in your ear.  Delegate someone in your wedding party to take the dress to the cleaners as soon as possible after your wedding day to have it cleaned.   We suggest having it preserved right away too.

What is bridal gown preservation?

Preserving a bridal gown – or wedding gown – is to carefully package the gown for storage to keep it in perfect condition.  When you take the dress out of the box years and decades later, it will be maintained, in tact, & free from deterioration and decay.

First, during a detailed, gentle, hand cleaning, all contaminants that can cause the dress to turn yellow such as body oils, sweat, deodorant, perfumes, lotions, food stains, etc. are removed.  Metal items such as clasps, buttons and hooks are treated carefully and beads and sequins that are sharp are covered so they don’t get damaged (and so they don’t cause damage to the dress).

After hand cleaning, an anti-sugar stain treatment is applied.  Sugar stains are spills that contain sugar, salt and acid that often dry clear and cannot be seen.  These stains do not dissolve during ordinary dry cleaning and turn an ugly brown over time.  The anti-sugar stain treatment ensures all sugar, salt & acid is removed.

We may be able to repair the fabric, lace, beads and other areas as needed. The goal is always to make the gown just as beautiful as the day it was first worn.

The gown is then layered with an environmentally pure, acid-free tissue and carefully folded into an acid-free, museum quality, archival wedding chest.  We store metal buttons and findings and shoulder pads separately, stuffing the sleeves, bodice and folds with additional acid-free tissue to prevent hard wrinkles. The preservation box, designed especially for this purpose, allows the gown to breathe, keeping it in perfect condition for many decades to come.

If you choose a Certified Wedding Gown Specialists™, such as Classic Cleaners, to preserve your gown, you will receive a written 100 percent guarantee against sugar stains and yellowing. (If at any time in the future stains appear or discoloration occurs, we or any participating specialist in more than 500 cities around the world will restore the gown for free.)  When the gown is to be worn again, you may take your gown to any participating Certified Wedding Gown Specialists™ in the country to have it inspected and pressed at no charge before the gown is worn again.

Preserving a gown now will save you time and resources later if you believe you may want to pass the dress down to a relative or friend, re-sell it, or use the material to create other heirlooms such as baptismal gowns or baby bedding.

Do you know anyone who has worn a gown that had been previously preserved?  We’d love to hear the details and see pictures if available!

- S.O.

Congratulations!  You’re engaged.  Now what?!

1. Breathe
2. Expect that elders are going to want to voice their opinions and you’ll receive unsolicited advice from friends, peers, and co-workers.  Try to have the mindset early on to have calm communication with those that may influence the wedding financially and take the chatter from others with a grain of salt.
3. Get a wedding planning book or sign up for a wedding planning site like to help you prioritize what should be planned right away and what can wait a few months.  Hop on Pinterest for all kinds of Wedding Planning visuals, blogs and vendors to help you during all areas of the planning process.  Not everything has to be done today (like finding the perfect dress or tux) but some things do need to be done very soon.
4. Create a wedding website.  This will keep you organized but it will also be great for your family and friends to stay on top of any and all info you’d like to share.  You can share planning details, post pictures and links to registries, and individuals can use it to RSVP for the big day.  Some will even email you each week with reminders of what to do next.
5. Explore what type of wedding you’d like to have.  Will it be big, fancy, small, intimate, casual; at a church, courthouse, a beach resort, Vegas; indoors, outdoors, while skydiving?
6. Think about the seasons when planning the date and how that will dictate your attire, location and availability of ceremony and reception sites.
7. If you’re going to have a reception, think about your guest list and start a draft.  No sense taking the time to choose a reception location if you’re not sure how big of a venue you will need.
8. Jot down future major holidays or family events already booked.  Even consider big sporting events your area hosts as they can affect availability for ceremony/reception locations, accommodations and desired wedding party/guest’s schedules.
9. Agree with your future Bride/Groom on a ceremony site and a reception site and book it ASAP.  Popular wedding sites book up a year or more in advance.  Seasonally, it’s no secret Summer is high time for weddings and with limited weekend dates to choose from, venues will be slim pickings if you wait too long. If you choose a destination wedding, choosing that location sooner rather than later will give the guests you invite time to plan and save for the trip.
10. Once you set the date, have a budget and secure the the location, start interviewing the entertainment, photographers, and flower vendors.  The really great ones get snatched up quickly.  Similarly to the venues, they can be booked a year or more in advance.
11. Start your gift registries.  You can always modify them later but if you’re have an engagement party – or even if not – people will want to acknowledge your engagement with a gift.  With a registry in place, they’ll easily gift you something you really want or need in terms of guest head count.
12. If there’s anything our Wedding Gown Experts can help you with in regards to restoring a family heirloom or prepping the wedding party’s attire prior to the event, we’re here for you when that time comes.  Right now…
13. Have fun!  It’s a joyous exciting day you’re planning so be yourself, stay true to visions of your “dream wedding” with your “dream partner” and enjoy the process!

- S.O.

Not another tie! If you’ve given Dad a wardrobe of nice clothes over the past few Father’s Days, he’s probably running out of closet space. For the perfect Father’s Day gift, help him look his best with a gift card from Classic Cleaners. Here are some tips on how you can make your gift just right for Dad.

The avid golfer. An afternoon on the green can be quite sweaty, especially with Indiana’s summertime heat. Courses with no shade do little to protect golf shirts from unsightly underarm stains. Treat Dad to a day on the links, some new golf balls and a Classic Cleaners gift card to keep him looking fresh.

The proud veteran. Even if his days serving our country have ended, the service uniforms of these dads still deserve a salute. A great way to show your love and appreciation is by giving the proud veteran a gift card to Classic Cleaners for our heirloom services. We clean, restore and preserve armed services uniforms so future generations can respect and appreciate the sacrifices made.

The business professional. With tightly tucked-in shirts, these dads are no strangers to buttoned-up, business-casual or professional environments. If dry cleaning is part of your pop’s routine, make things a little easier for him. Classic Cleaners’ Pickup & Delivery helps him keep the errands to a minimum and his collared shirts clean and pants neatly pressed. Pickup & Delivery is free, so sign up today and then stop by your nearest Classic Cleaners location to purchase a gift card for Dad.

Show your love by helping Dad stay well dressed for any occasion. Happy Father’s Day!

“Once upon a time, women who bought their wedding dresses secondhand to cut costs may have kept it a secret; today they have bragging rights,”  says Bethany Kandel in New York Times’ Field Notes. Kandel cautions the now “in” frugal brides to budget for alternations and dry cleaning bills.

At Classic Cleaners, our wedding gown care professionals know all about the specialized dry cleaning, alternation, and pressing techniques needed for both brand new and “lightly loved” bridal attire.

While a surprising number of brides are buying used wedding gear online, as SmartMoney reporter Joan Magee notes, at Classic Cleaners we’re noticing more and more brides choosing to restore beautiful heirloom wedding gowns, first worn by Mom or Grandma, for their own wedding.

The Australian film released just last year, Second Hand Wedding, was dubbed a “first-class success by reviewers. Apparently, from the time Barbra Streisand lamented her status as “Secondhand Rose“, frugality has made quite a comeback. 

Of course, at Classic Cleaners, our job is making sure all our brides- and all their wedding gowns – make their absolute best appearance (whatever time around)! 

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team