With Classic Cleaners so involved in the care and preservation of bridal attire, it’s natural for us to hear all about different weddings – and about different wedding legends and superstitions!

Just the other day we were discussing with one of our recently married Eagle Creek dry cleaning clients one of the oldest superstitions surrounding weddings:

                    It’s considered bad luck for the bride to try on the entire wedding outfit – meaning the dress, shoes, veil, train, gloves, etc. – before the wedding itself.

How did the topic of wedding superstitions and folklore come up in that conversation? Well, with so many lakes and the reservoir, rainbows may often be seen in the Eagle Creek area. In fact, a very beautiful rainbow had appeared on the very day of this Classic Cleaners’ client’s wedding.  We discussed the fact that, in folklore, if a bride sees a frog, a dove, or a rainbow on her way to the ceremony, good luck will follow.

One tradition it seems everyone knows about is the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”., with the “old” and “new” representing the bride’s life pre-wedding and post-wedding, and the blue standing for the traditional color of wedding dresses before Queen Victoria changed the fashion to white.

From Eagle Creek to Noblesville, our customers seem to honor old traditions while creating some new ones of their own.  We so enjoy being part of marriage-in-the-making!  Before the big day, Classic Cleaners professionals perform alterations and prepare dresses for travel to destination wedding sites. Afterwards, our expert stain removal process and archival box storage come into play!

Whether or not we’ve seen that rainbow or dove, At Classic Cleaners we feel lucky to play a part in the wedding tradition!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

“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

Handmade in the small English town of Honiton, the lace on Queen Victoria’s wedding gown took more than one hundred lace makers more than six months to create. When the queen married Prince Albert in 1840, she started a trend by wearing a white dress – before that, white gowns were quite unusual.

To this day, lace adds a beautiful romantic touch to garments, especially wedding and christening gowns. Two famous types of lace are Chantilly and Alencon; each can come embroidered with seed beads and pearls.

The delicate surface of lace demands special sewing techniques – and special lace dry cleaning care. If the holes in the lace are large, there is even greater danger of snagging and tearing (this is especially true with vintage wedding gowns).

One of the wedding gown dry cleaning challenges the professionals at Classic Cleaners face comes from stains accumulating around the beaded edges of lace. The “terrible threes”, sugars, salts, and acids, do the kind of damage to wedding gowns with which conventional dry cleaning methods cannot cope.

 The clean, safe, and unique methods of wedding gown hand cleaning, dry cleaning and preservation perfected over the years by Classic Cleaners have kept many a lacy wedding gown in an enchanting state of perfection!

by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

“Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme! Don’t waste my time, Show me!” sings Eliza Doolittle in the musical My Fair Lady.

Recent Classic Cleaners blog posts have featured MuseumCare™, our wedding dress preservation system, guaranteed by all members of the worldwide Association of Wedding Gown Specialists.

Summerlot dress before restoring

While we love singing songs and reading rhymes, in today’s blog post we’re going to show

Summerlot dress after restoration

and tell you about the very special linen and lace wedding dress brought in to Classic Cleaners by customer Virginia Summerlot. Virginia’s daughter, a California resident, is getting married next year and plans to wear her mother’s 47-year old restored gown, matching gloves, train, and all. This promises to be a wedding story with not one, but two happy endings! (Who knows? With proper care and preservation, there might be more encore performances in store for this gorgeous garment!)

The special hand cleaning and preservation treatment system used on the Summerlot gown was showcased by Classic Cleaners at the

Classic Cleaners' Booth at the Scottish Rite Bridal Fair

bridal display at the Scottish Rite Cathedral on January 8th and 9th of this year. Our table features awards, photos, and the acid-free, archival quality wedding dress box we use for heirloom preservation.

Sing you no songs, you say?  Read you no rhymes?  Any time, we’ll show you!

By Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team