A Brief History Of Wedding Gown Preservation

The idea of wedding gown preservation may seem like a relatively new idea. Although we would love to say we were the first group of people to come up with the idea of preserving a wedding gown, that simply is not true. Brides have wanted to preserve their wedding gowns for centuries. Who can blame them? A wedding gown represents the first dress you wear once you marry your significant other.

It represents your new life together, and it shows the moment you decided to spend the rest of your life with another person. Because of the deep symbolic meaning of wedding dresses, it is likely not shocking that people have been looking for ways to preserve their gowns since the late 18th century.

Early Wedding Gown Preservation

Today, most women cannot imagine re-wearing their wedding dress to another event. However, this is a relatively modern phenomenon. Before the early 20th century, most women would re-wear their wedding gowns throughout their lifetimes. This makes sense when one considers that it was the most expensive dress in their wardrobe and the latest fashion. Although the gown would not get worn every day, it was frequently worn to special events, including parties, balls and even other weddings! To keep the gown current, they were frequently redyed to become versatile.

Unfortunately, because these gowns were worn often, these dresses frequently became ruined and disintegrated. Because of this, many vintage collectors rarely find intact wedding dresses from common people during the 1800s. Those gowns we do have intact are from the extremely wealthy and royalty who preserved their gowns and did not need to preserve them.

In the late 1700s, wedding gown preservation became a trend amongst royals. Weddings were large affairs that were frequently open to the public and celebrated across the country. Gowns were crafted with the upmost care, with precious jewels sewn in and lace and silk detailing. Preservationists from the era worked hard to keep these gowns intact. Unfortunately, limits in technology ensured these gowns still rotted within a generation or two and what remains is extremely fragile and not fit for display.

The Oldest Wedding Gown

The oldest wedding gown that is fit for display is over 200 years old. Worn by Princess Charlotte in 1816, the gown graced the halls of St. James Palace when Charlotte married Prince Leopold. The dress features silk bobbinet embroidered with silver lame and Brussels lace. When Charlotte walked down the aisle, the gown would have shimmered with each step.

The dress has survived because palace staff kept the dress dry and out of direct sunlight well after Charlotte and Leopold’s marriage ended two years later with Charlotte’s death.

Reasons To Preserve A Wedding Gown

Although you likely don’t have a dedicated royal staff to care for your dress to ensure its survival, you do have us. We can rehabilitate dresses that are decades old as well as keep newer dresses looking like they were just pulled off the rack a century from now. The top reasons our brides tell us they want to preserve their gown include:

Stain Removal – Stains can set into your gown quite easily due to the delicate materials used to create them. By removing stains as early as possible, you can ensure your entire gown stays the same color.

Valuable Heirloom – By preserving your dress, you can ensure it becomes an heirloom that your heirs’ treasure for years to come. The best part? After they wear the gown, they can re-preserve it with us to keep it in the family!

Ideal Conditions – Our wedding dress preservation kits are specially formulated to ensure they keep your dress always looking great. Our boxes keep out moisture, sunlight, bugs and an assortment of other environmental factors that can damage a gown.

Affordability – We believe wedding gown preservation should be affordable for all which is why we have priced our kits low. This can save you thousands of dollars in dry cleaning and storage fees over the years.

Getting Started

Wedding gown preservation has a rich history, so why not add your dress to that long lineage? Our wedding gown preservation kits will allow you to keep your gown looking great for generations to come. Learn more about which kit is right for your gown on our website.

Getting Started

Wedding Dress Restoration

1

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

2

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

3

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

4

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

5

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

6

Placing Your Restoration Kit Order

Ordering your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit™ is a breeze. Simply visit our purchase page and customize your kit. Complete the checkout process securely using your credit card or PayPal™ account, protected by Norton®.Why customize your restoration? The purpose of restoring your vintage gown is to pass it down as a cherished memory of your special day—a moment frozen in time. To enhance this memory, we offer the option to personalize the display box with a name, date, and photo. This way, future generations can witness the beauty of your preserved vintage wedding gown as it was worn on that significant day. As a bonus, you can include up to 5 accessories from your wedding day for free restoration, such as a garter, coin purse, or veil.Once ordered, your Wedding Gown Restoration Kit will arrive at your doorstep within 5-7 days.

Why Order With Us?

We take great pleasure in leading the wedding gown preservation industry. Because of our dedication to preservation, we are considered an “Elite” dealer for the Wedding Gown Preservation Company. Because the Wedding Gown Preservation Company does not sell directly to the public, they rely on experienced distributors for marketing their leading services to brides around the United States.

Elite Dealers – What’s The Deal?

There are only a handful of “Elite” dealers around the United States. The Wedding Gown Preservation Company only awards this title to the highest level distributors of their kits. To get awarded “Elite” status, companies must sell a certain number of kits while continuously delivering top tier customer service. We work directly with the Wedding Gown Preservation Company to help brides decide on the right kit for preserving their wedding gown while offering wedding dress preservation at an affordable price point.

Why Buy the Wedding Gown Presentation Kit?

  • Receive expert advice on which kit is right for your wedding gown preservation needs. We carefully examine your style as well as the dress designer and price tag to ensure you get the right gown for your needs.
  • We keep you continuously in the loop with our tracking software. You know which stage your dress is in at all times.
  • Every bride receives our unparallel 100 year guarantee to ensure their dress stays looking great. Although 99.99% of our dresses look pristine for those 100 years, some dresses may experience yellowing before the guarantee ends. If this happens, we will restore the dress again for free. If our restoration efforts fail, we refund you in full.
  • Personalize your kit with a photo, name and date or select one of the three to make your kit look the way you want it to look.
  • We offer our customer’s a lowest price guarantee. If you find the kit at a lower price point, we will match our competitor’s price.
  • Rush processing for emergencies is available as well. This allows us to clean or preserve your gown in time for any event.
  • If you decide not to preserve your gown after purchasing the kit, we offer a 60-day money back guarantee.

Are you ready to start your wedding preservation process? We clean and preserve your gown to ensure it looks great for years to come. Contact us today to get started on your wedding gown preservation ASAP.

An archive-quality preservation system
for your wedding dress.

Wedding dress preservation and cleaning cannot get completed with a traditional system. Even dry cleaners may not be able to thoroughly clean a gown, let alone preserve it. For wedding gown preservation to work correctly, a gown must be thoroughly cleaned. A dirty dress simply rots. With over 100 years of experience, we have perfected wedding dress cleaning and preservation to a new art. We have adopted the SYSTEMK4 to clean wedding gowns more thoroughly than ever.

A History of Wedding Dress Cleaning

We’ll go into the SYSTEMK4 in a minute, but before we begin, we think it’s integral to discuss the history of wedding dress cleaning. In the olden days, wedding dresses were cleaned with a variety of items, ranging from lard-based soap to spot treatments. However, the most important thing to look at is dry cleaning and how cleaners have traditionally used it to clean wedding dresses.

Dry cleaning does not actually mean the garment remains dry throughout the cleaning process. Instead, the garment is soaked with perchloroethylene (more commonly known as “Perc”). Have you ever walked into a dry cleaner and noticed a distinct odor? This odor hovers around all dry-cleaning places because they all use Perc. Because Perc works so well on cleaning textiles, it has been utilized in the dry-cleaning industry for over 100 years. This chemical works well because it does not damage fragile textiles while still removing discoloration and staining.

However, there’s also a nefarious side of Perc. Not only does it smell horrible, it’s also hazardous. Many researchers believe that Perc is carcinogenic. Because of this, the United States government taxes dry cleaners who use the chemical to prevent hazardous waste leak into the environment. If Perc does get into the environment, specialized environmental cleanup crews need to come in. These cleanup efforts can cost thousands of dollars.

You’re probably wondering why perc gets used due to its toxicity, health concerns and even bad odor. Perc is an aggressive stain remover. It can cut through oil, fat and grease quite well. It also is quite cheap. Competing methods can be much more expensive for drycleaners who need to keep prices low. Many other methods cannot clean items in a single cycle like Perc. Again, this leads to higher prices for dry cleaners that isn’t feasible. Finally, Perc, although gentle on many fabrics, can leave a bad odor and may not be the right chemical for certain delicate fabrics or blends.

With all these factors in mind, we ditched the Perc years ago. Since then, we have adopted the SYSTEMK4.

SYSTEMK4: The Ultimate Wedding Gown Cleaning and Preservation Solution

SYSTEMK4 changed the game when it came to dry cleaning. Developed in Germany, the SYSTEMK4 is more effective than Perc, correct for all fabrics and 100% safe for the environment. Rather than using environmental guidelines as the standard, SYSTEMK4 developers looked at them as a starting point to ensure the system exceeds environmental rules and regulations. The system is completely harmless for humans as well.

Kreussler Inc., a chemical and research company, developed the SYSTEMK4. Instead of relying on a single component like Perc-based systems, it relies on three separate components: SolvonK4, ClipK4, and PrenettK4.

SolvonK4 – This solvent is the basis for all three components. A solvent, SolvonK4 works better than Perc and allows dry cleaners to remove stains in no time at all.

ClipK4 – A highly concentrated dry cleaning detergent, ClipK4 removes stains from your wedding gown. Furthermore, it removes stains that cannot be seen with the naked eye that traditional dry cleaning may miss. These stains need to be removed as soon as possible. If they’re left untreated, they can cause the gown to rot.

PrenettK4 – PrenettK4 is a brushing agent. This means it will remove any dirt or icing stains on the gown that have dried on particles. Rather than dissolving these items with harsh chemicals, the brushing agent gently removes them to ensure the integrity of the fabric.

These three elements allow a gown to become good as new. They work in conjunction with one another to create a deep-cleaning process that makes a gown look good as new no matter how old it is. Stains simply do not stand a chance.

SYSTEMK4 offers unparallel wedding gown cleaning and preservation. Because wedding gown preservation requires a gentle but strong cleaning process, it has historically been difficult for people to get a wedding dress cleaned. Sadly, the commonly used Perc cannot treat stains as effectively as possible in addition to harming the environment. Because of this, we long ago switched from Perc to the SYSTEMK4. SYSTEMK4 benefits include much more effective stain and spot treatment, better preservation, more thorough cleaning, prevention of yellowing or graying of the fabric and better for the environment. With 100 years in the industry, we have invested in the perfect cleaning solution to ensure gowns look great for generations while giving each dress the royal treatment.

Additional SYSTEMK4 Benefits

In addition to unparallel cleaning power, SYSTEMK4 also offers:

  • Dermatologically tested for safety and non-toxic
  • No color loss for fabrics, no matter what shade they are
  • Safe on even the most delicate fabrics, beading, sequins, embroidery, and any other embellishments wedding gowns may contain
  • Extends your dress’ longevity by decades
  • Powerful cleaning power for grass, food and dirt stains as well as harder to treat oils, fats and grease stain
  • Keeps whites white and colors bright and vibrant
  • Prevents yellowing or graying of fabrics
  • Gown contains a fresh scent and removes any lingering odors, including cigarette smoke

Choose a Preservation Kit

Traditional Preservation Kit

Celebrity Preservation Kit

Christening Preservation Kit

Wedding Dress Restoration Kit

Wedding Dress Clean-Only Kit

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