Wedding Dress Cleaning (without preservation)
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The 5-Step Process
1. Order online
Choose your service and check out in about a minute — your free shipping kit ships out to you right away.
2. Your kit arrives
It lands on your doorstep in 4–5 business days with the box, a prepaid insured FedEx label, protective wrapping, and simple step-by-step instructions.
3. Pack & ship your dress
Bag your dress, seal the box, and drop it at any FedEx location — or schedule a free pickup. That’s the only errand.
4. Museum-quality cleaning
Your dress is inspected under UV light, hand-treated, cleaned with our gentle museum-quality process, and gently pressed — built for delicate bridal fabric.
5. Delivery, ready to wear
Your dress arrives home on a premium hanger in a protective garment bag — ready to wear, photograph, or pass along.
Your Dress Is in Safe Hands
Handing your wedding dress to someone you’ve never met is a big ask — we know, and we don’t take it lightly. In more than a century of caring for dresses, the ones that arrive damaged or go missing are extraordinarily rare, and we’ve built every step to keep it that way: the industry’s best logistics software, delicate-fabric cleaning technology, and commercial-grade packing that protects your dress on the road and at our facility.
And you’re never left wondering where it is. Follow your dress 24/7 with online Dress Tracking, while our own internal barcoding keeps it accounted for at every hand-off — out to your door, in to us, and safely back home.
What’s In Your Kit?
Everything You Need for a Perfect Cleaning
Answering Your Most Common Questions
How long does the whole process take?
About 3–4 weeks total: 4–5 business days for your shipping kit to arrive, the cleaning itself at our facility, and return shipping. In a hurry? Add Step 1 Rush Processing (+$50) to speed your in-house processing to 7–10 business days (plus shipping each way).
Is my dress safe in shipping?
Yes — every shipment is fully insured and tracked by FedEx in both directions, so you always know exactly where your dress is. In our century of operation, a lost or stolen dress is extraordinarily rare — a wedding dress holds its greatest value to the person who wore it, making it one of the safest items you can ship. And if anything unexpected ever did occur, your dress is fully covered from the moment it leaves your door to the moment it’s delivered back to you.
How is this different from local dry cleaning?
While a local dry cleaner can usually remove most surface stains, they typically lack the specialized technology to identify and address invisible stains such as perspiration, perfume, and champagne — the ones that cause yellowing and brown spots to surface over time. Our museum-quality cleaning process is built specifically for delicate bridal fabrics and beadwork, using the same technology trusted to care for historic textiles.
Will my dress be ready to wear again or sell?
Yes — that’s exactly what Clean-Only is built for. Your dress is professionally cleaned, gently steam pressed, and returned on a premium hanger in a protective garment bag. Keep in mind that some wrinkling may occur during shipping, so a light press before wearing is recommended.
Can I upgrade to Preservation later if I change my mind?
Yes — if you decide after your wedding that you’d like to preserve your dress long-term, simply place a new preservation order (Traditional or Celebrity) and send your dress in whenever you’re ready. Many brides do exactly this, especially those who purchased a sample dress or are wearing a dress that was handed down to them to wear for their wedding day.
What if my dress has unusual stains?
Our museum-quality cleaning process successfully addresses the vast majority of wedding-day stains — champagne, wine, food, makeup, lipstick, perspiration, blood, grass, mud, and most beverages. Deep-set or unusually stubborn stains may not be fully reversible. If any stains could not be completely removed, a note will be included with your returned dress. For a closer look at what our cleaning process can do, visit our Before and After gallery.
Why Choose Wedding Dress Cleaning (without preservation)?
Maybe you’ll wear it again — a vow renewal, an anniversary photo shoot — or maybe you’ll sell it. Either way, the cleaning has to be done by people who know wedding-dress fabric, not the dry cleaner who handles your everyday clothes.
Every Clean-Only order goes through the same museum-quality cleaning process we use on couture preservation. Perspiration, makeup, food, wine, grass — the invisible stains that oxidize into permanent yellowing — are lifted before they can settle in. Your dress comes back gently pressed, on a premium hanger in a garment bag, ready to wear, photograph, or sell.
Trusted by 3 Million+ Brides Since 1913
We’re the Elite Authorized Retailer for the Wedding Gown Preservation Company — the state-of-the-art facility cleaning and preserving wedding dresses since 1913. Preserve, restore, or simply clean: the same century-old standards apply to every order that comes through that facility.
Changed Your Mind? You Can Upgrade Later.
Plenty of brides start with Clean-Only — to wear the dress one more time, or to sell it — then send it back for full preservation down the road. The path stays open whenever you’re ready.
Read What Brides Are Saying
Kristen★★★★★
This company knows what they are doing! Love how I got mailed everything I needed to get my dress to them with easy directions. I was notified when they received my dress and when it was on its way back to me. My dress is sparkling and clean again :)
Elaine★★★★★
I absolutely would recommend working with Affordable Preservation. The process was seamless and super easy — plus my dress was completed sooner than I anticipated!
Reviewer photos shown with attribution to WeddingWire. Reviewers retain all rights to their images. See our full review pages on The Knot and WeddingWire.
Museum-Quality Cleaning. Not Local Dry Cleaning.
Ready to Have Your Dress Cleaned Right?
FREE insured shipping, every step. The same museum-quality cleaning process used on couture preservation. Trusted by more than 3 million brides since 1913.
Personalization Options
Name & Date Personalization (+$30)
If you would simply like the date of your wedding day, along with the names of the bride and groom, then this is a great personalization option. The font will be displayed in sans serif and will be in black lettering with a white background which looks elegant and regal displayed on our gloss-finished preservation chest. Maximum of 18 characters per line.
Photo, Name & Date Personalization (+$60)
For the bride who desires only the best, we have the option to add name, date, and a photo to your preservation chest. Text will be displayed in white lettering with a black border or black lettering with a white border, depending on which combination looks best overlaid on your photo. Maximum of 18 characters per line.
Rush Processing (+$50)
Our rush processing option is perfect for a bride with a dress that needs cleaning for a quickly approaching wedding, or a bride that will soon be moving and needs her dress processed and preserved quickly. Adding rush processing to your order moves your dress to the front of the queue, bringing in-house processing down to 7–10 business days (plus shipping each way).
What stays the same with Rush: the same museum-quality cleaning, the same preservation chest, the same 100-year guarantee. We don’t cut corners on the work itself — we just move your dress to the front of the queue.
Additional Insurance
To add peace-of-mind when sending in your wedding dress, we include door-to-door insurance on your dress with all our services. Our Celebrity preservation includes $3,000 of coverage, Traditional and Dress Clean-Only include $2,000, and the Christening / Flower Girl & Baptism service includes $500.
You may add additional insurance to your order at $50 per extra $1,000 worth of insurance value, to match the original purchase price of your dress.
Coverage applies in the rare event of loss or damage during the preservation process.
Why Order With Us
- Elite Authorized Retailer for Wedding Gown Preservation Co. — the family-owned facility that has cleaned and preserved wedding dresses since 1913.
- 475+ verified 5-star reviews across The Knot, WeddingWire & Google — a 17× WeddingWire Couples’ Choice and 12× The Knot Best of Weddings winner, with a place in their Hall of Fame.
- Written 100-year anti-yellowing guarantee on every order.
- Museum-quality cleaning and acid-free preservation, hand-inspected by bridal-fabric specialists.
- Free insured shipping, every step — door to door, fully covered.
Additional Items
You can also include up to 5 complimentary wedding-day accessories — veil, garter, tiara, gloves, sash, jacket, shawl, handkerchief, ring pillow, and more — cleaned and preserved with your dress at no extra cost. Additional accessories beyond the first five are $10 each, billed by check at the preservation facility.
For an additional fee of $50 each, your wedding shoes, slip, or silk bouquet can be cleaned and preserved and included in your preservation chest. For an additional $50, you can choose to have these items preserved and displayed in their own smaller display box, rather than in the bottom of your preservation chest.
You don’t need to tell us in advance which accessories you’re including. Just pack them with your dress when you ship your dress — our specialists will clean and preserve them alongside your dress.
Restoration Add-On (+$100)
The Restoration Add-On adds our hand-cleaned restoration treatment to your order. It’s designed for vintage or heirloom dresses — dresses 20 or more years old, dresses with significant yellowing or oxidation, or dresses with set-in stains from long-term storage.
If you’re ordering Clean-Only or a Christening service for an older dress that’s been stored for decades, adding restoration is the difference between a cleaned-but-still-yellowed dress and a dress that comes back to wearable, ready-to-display condition.
What the restoration treatment includes: 100% hand-cleaned multi-cycle cleaning (gentler than our automated museum-quality cleaning for fragile aged textiles), aggressive yellowing and oxidation removal, spot-treatment for set-in stains, and minor repairs (loose beadwork, small mends) at no extra charge.
Not sure if your dress needs restoration? Call us at (800) 887-0135, Monday–Friday 9:00 AM–4:30 PM Pacific Time, with a photo and we’ll tell you which service fits. Or learn more on the Wedding Dress Restoration page.
Post-Cleaning Photos (+$50)
We offer our customers Post-Cleaning Photos of their dress before it is carefully packaged into your preservation chest. These high-quality images give you peace-of-mind in knowing your dress is perfectly cleaned and preserved — without having to remove your dress from the preservation chest and void your 100-year guarantee.
You will receive at least 4 high-quality photos with the focus on the hem line of your dress, and you can choose to have the images sent by text or e-mail prior to us shipping your dress back to your home. Additional images will be provided if there is a problem area on your dress which required additional processing.