Wedding Dress Preservation —because some memories are worth keeping forever

Wedding dress preservation is a specialized process built specifically for bridal fabrics — not standard dry cleaning. When your dress arrives, trained technicians evaluate its fabric and condition to determine the right cleaning approach, then it moves through a multi-step process: museum-quality cleaning that lifts visible and invisible stains — perspiration, perfume, champagne, cake frosting — that can oxidize into yellowing over time, careful pressing, and packaging in 100% acid-free materials inside a chest with a UV-protective viewing window. The result is backed by a written 100-year guarantee. Curious how it actually works? See our full cleaning process →

Each service has a base price — the same for any dress size (a $100 surcharge may apply only for unusually large, heavy, or heavily soiled dresses). Traditional Preservation is $360, Celebrity Preservation is $435, and Clean-Only is $260. Restoration for older or heavily yellowed dresses runs $460–$535 with preservation, or $360 for cleaning and restoration without the chest. Free insured shipping is included at every step. A few optional extras, like shoe cleaning or boxing an item separately, are priced separately and aren’t included in the base price.

Processing and delivery times vary by service:
• Shipping Kit (included free with all services to send in your dress): arrives within 4–5 business days of ordering.
• Traditional or Celebrity Preservation: approximately 4–14 weeks from the day you place your order to return delivery, depending on shipping distance and seasonal volume. Peak wedding season (May–October) runs toward the longer end.
• Wedding Dress Cleaning without Preservation: approximately 3–4 weeks total.
• Traditional or Celebrity Restoration: approximately 8–12 weeks total.
• In-House Rush: add $50 to speed your in-house processing to 7–10 business days (plus approximately 1 week shipping each way).

Once you place your order, we’ll mail you a free shipping kit — a sturdy shipping box, a prepaid insured FedEx label, a protective bag for your dress, and simple instructions. No trips to a dry cleaner, no pickup or drop-off scheduling — everything you need conveniently arrives at your door. Simply place your dress in the protective bag, seal the box, and attach the prepaid label, then drop it at any FedEx location near you. Each step is designed to keep your dress safe — both on its way to us and on its way back home to you.

Both services start with the same museum-quality cleaning — what differs is the chest finish, insurance coverage, and pressing method. Traditional Preservation includes a white gloss preservation chest, $2,000 of door-to-door insurance, and steam pressing. Celebrity Preservation includes an upgraded silver-tone chest, $3,000 of insurance, and hand or steam pressing depending on the fabric. We recommend Celebrity Preservation for silk, couture, heavily beaded, or dresses valued over $2,000 — Traditional Preservation is the right fit for everything else.

These are three distinct services, each suited to a different dress and situation. Preservation (Traditional or Celebrity) is for dresses under 20 years old you want to keep long-term. Your dress is cleaned, pressed, and preserved using our museum-quality process, then placed in a preservation chest backed by the 100-year guarantee. Restoration is for dresses 20+ years old that need our 100% hand-cleaning process to reverse decades of yellowing before preservation. Wedding Dress Clean-Only (cleaning without preservation) is for dresses that will be worn or sold within a year — professionally cleaned and pressed, then returned ready-to-wear in a garment bag. Not sure which fits? Help Me Choose narrows it down in about a minute.

Several important factors set us apart from a regular dry cleaner:

1. Specialized stain detection. Technicians examine your dress under UV light to find stains that aren’t yet visible to the naked eye, with special attention to the hemline and décolletage — the two areas brides ask about most.
2. Equipment built for bridal fabric, not general clothing. A regular dry cleaner’s equipment and solvents aren’t designed for delicate beading, lace, or silk — ours is.
3. Certified bridal fabric expertise. Our technicians complete specialized certification in bridal fabric care — training a regular dry cleaner doesn’t have.
4. Long-term protection. Acid-free archival packaging, including a preservation chest with a UV-protective viewing window.
5. A written 100-year guarantee against yellowing.

Curious about every step? See our full cleaning process →

With our professional museum-quality cleaning and preservation, your dress can stay wedding-day white for 100 years or more — protected from UV light, pests, dirt, and dust in its acid-free preservation chest. That’s exactly what our written 100-Year Guarantee covers. If it ever yellows while stored properly, we’ll restore it at no extra charge.

Usually, yes. Our wedding dress restoration specialists use delicate hand-cleaning techniques as part of a multi-cycle restoration process built to reverse yellowing in older dresses (typically 20+ years). Results depend on the fabric and how set-in the discoloration is — heavily set-in stains may not fully reverse, but most yellowed dresses recover substantially. Traditional Restoration and Celebrity Restoration include the preservation chest; Clean-Only with Restoration is for dresses you’ll wear or sell soon, returned in a garment bag instead. Call (800) 887-0135 with a photo for an honest assessment first. Check out some before-and-after photos here.

Yes — your dress won’t be vacuum-sealed, so it stays fully accessible. You’re welcome to open the chest anytime to check on your dress or retrieve an item, gently lifting the layers with the latex gloves we provide — that doesn’t affect your guarantee. However, completely removing your dress from the preservation chest, for any reason, voids the 100-year guarantee — this is how we know the dress hasn’t been worn again since preservation. If you ever do want to wear your dress again, or pass it down for a daughter or family member to wear, you’re free to take it out — just know that doing so voids the guarantee.

Yes — the preserved dress is built to be a true heirloom. The acid-free materials and UV-protective preservation chest are designed for long-term storage, and brides have passed their preserved dresses to daughters and granddaughters decades later. One thing to know: the 100-year guarantee is certified to the original owner named on the order and isn’t transferable to a new owner — but the dress itself stays protected the whole time, as long as it remains in its chest, unworn. You’re welcome to open the chest anytime to check on the dress — that won’t affect your guarantee. Just keep it at room temperature and out of direct sunlight, and know that completely removing the dress from the chest voids the guarantee, since that’s how we confirm it hasn’t been worn again.

Trusting an online company with your irreplaceable wedding dress is a big decision — and we take that seriously. We’re an Elite Authorized Retailer for Wedding Gown Preservation Co., a state-of-the-art facility that has cared for wedding dresses since 1913, and we’ve proudly served brides since 2003. Behind every order is a written 100-year guarantee, hundreds of verified 5-star reviews across The Knot, WeddingWire, and Google, and multiple Couples’ Choice and Best of Weddings awards — backed by over a century of experience and more than 3 million dresses cared for.