A wedding dress holds more than fabric. It holds the morning of your wedding, the light through the windows, the people who stood beside you. We don’t take that lightly — which is why every dress we preserve carries the longest guarantee in our industry, in writing.
What the 100-Year Wedding Dress Preservation Guarantee Covers
The promise is simple and it’s written in plain language:
- 100 years against yellowing. If your dress yellows while stored in its preservation chest, we’ll re-clean and re-preserve it at no charge — anytime within the next century.
- Free restoration if it’s ever needed. If yellowing appears, the work to reverse it is included, not billed separately.
- A full refund if reprocessing can’t resolve it. In the rare case our process can’t deliver a properly preserved dress, Wedding Gown Preservation Co. refunds your preservation cost.
- Certified to the original owner. The guarantee is issued to the original owner named on the preservation order. It stays in force as long as the dress hasn’t been worn again, removed from the chest, mishandled, assigned, transferred, or sold. It covers the fabric only — beads and sequins are excluded.
There’s nothing to mail in or activate. Your guarantee is on file automatically the moment your order is processed, tied to your order number.
How We Can Promise a Century of Protection
Most preservation services cap their guarantee at 25 or 50 years — because ordinary dry cleaning and standard storage boxes simply don’t hold up. We can promise a full century of protection because of two things that don’t degrade over time.
Museum-quality cleaning
Our process identifies and removes the sugar (from champagne, cake icing, and beverages), perspiration, natural skin oils, and other stains that cause yellowing in the first place — the initially invisible ones that ordinary dry cleaning leaves behind that will oxidize over time. Your dress will be carefully inspected under UV light in order to identify and remove these invisible stains. By catching and removing them upfront, your dress will remain pristine over time. Read more about our cleaning technology →
A preservation chest built to last
Your professionally cleaned wedding dress is placed in an acid-free preservation chest — with a UV-protective viewing window, acid-free tissue, and an acid-free bust form — the same materials museums use for historic textiles. No acidic off-gassing, no UV exposure, no chemical interaction. A stable, neutral environment that doesn’t change with the decades.
Either cleaning alone or storage alone would still allow yellowing over time. Together — museum-quality cleaning and an acid-free preservation chest — they’re what make a century-long promise something we can put in writing.
Keeping Your Wedding Dress Guarantee Valid
A few simple things keep your guarantee valid:
Do
- Store the chest somewhere climate-controlled — not the attic, garage, or basement
- Keep it out of direct sunlight
- Open the chest to view your dress anytime — this does not void the guarantee
- Reseal with the squares included in your chest after viewing
- Keep the original order paperwork with the chest if you pass it down
Don’t
- Remove the dress completely from the chest (this voids the guarantee)
- Have the dress cleaned or treated elsewhere after preservation
- Make alterations or repairs after preservation
- Store the chest in extreme heat, cold, or humidity
- Discard the paperwork — you’ll need the order number to claim
The chest is designed to ‘breathe’ — closed against dust, dirt and pests, but it’s not airtight. Opening it now and then is completely fine. It’s removing the dress entirely that creates risk: out of its supported, acid-free environment, fabric can crease permanently or pick up new contaminants.
How to Make a Guarantee Claim
If your dress ever yellows under our care, here’s all it takes:
- Call. Reach Wedding Gown Preservation Company’s Customer Service at (800) 305-3108, Monday–Friday, 8:30 AM–4:00 PM ET, or reach out through our contact form. Have your serial number ready — you’ll find it in the upper right corner of the order form that came with your shipping kit, or in the email confirming your dress was received. Serial numbers begin with DS or KP, followed by numerical digits such as DS123456 or KP123456.
- Send a photo. A picture of the yellowing through the chest’s viewing window — you don’t need to open it.
- Ship it back free. Once validated, you’ll receive a prepaid FedEx shipping kit to send your dress back to us for restoration.
- Your dress is restored. Wedding Gown Preservation Company will restore your dress and remove the yellowing. Your wedding dress will be returned to you in a brand new acid-free preservation chest — tissue, bust form, and all — at no charge.
- It comes back home. Typically within 4–14 weeks of receipt, your restored dress is back at your door.
If your dress was preserved more than ten years ago, it’s worth occasionally opening the chest to inspect through the chest’s viewing window — catching any yellowing early makes it easy to address through a guarantee claim.
What the 100-Year Guarantee Doesn’t Cover
Every guarantee has limits. Knowing what’s not covered is just as important as knowing what is. The 100-year coverage protects against yellowing under reasonable storage. It doesn’t cover:
- Damage from improper storage (extreme temperature, flooding, smoke, pests)
- Changes to the dress after preservation (alterations, outside repairs, dye work)
- Damage to the chest itself if it’s crushed, dropped, or punctured
- Yellowing on a dress that was removed from the chest and re-stored
- A dress that has been worn (or tried on) again after preservation
- Acts of nature (flood, fire, natural disaster)
- Any dress serviced by another company after preservation
Most of these are covered by a homeowner’s or renter’s policy. If you’d like extra protection in transit and at the facility, additional door-to-door insurance is available in $1,000 increments at checkout.
Why Our 100-Year Guarantee Stands Apart
It’s worth comparing what’s actually guaranteed:
- The Wedding Dress Preservation Company: 100-year guarantee against yellowing — the longest in the industry.
- Most dry cleaners offering preservation: a 1–5 year warranty, often on cleaning, not yellowing.
- Other preservation companies: typically 25–50 years, often with significant fine print.
The difference comes down to three things: genuine expertise, state-of-the-art processes, and top-quality acid-free materials. When all three work together — at a facility that has been perfecting this craft since 1913 — a hundred-year promise isn’t a stretch. It’s a logical outcome.
Common Guarantee Questions
Will opening the chest void the guarantee?
No — your dress won’t be vacuum-sealed, so it’ll stay fully accessible. You’re welcome to open the chest anytime to check on your dress or retrieve an item, gently sifting through the layers with the latex gloves we provide — that doesn’t affect your guarantee. However, once your dress is removed from the preservation chest for any reason, it will void 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 do so — just know that removing it will void the guarantee.
Can I reseal the chest if I opened it?
Yes — resealing squares are included with every chest for exactly this. Open it anytime to check on your dress, sift through the layers with the latex gloves provided, and simply reseal when you’re done — your guarantee stays fully intact as long as the dress remains in the chest.
What if my dress yellows in year 80?
You’re still covered. The guarantee runs the full 100-year term from your original preservation date, so if yellowing appears in year 80, we’ll still restore your dress at no charge — the same as we would in year one.
Is the guarantee transferable to a future generation?
Unfortunately, no — the guarantee is issued to the original owner named on the preservation order and isn’t transferable. It stays valid as long as the dress has never been worn again, removed from the chest, mishandled, assigned, transferred, or sold, and it covers the fabric only (beads and sequins are excluded). If yellowing ever appears within the 100 years, the dress can be returned to be re-cleaned and preserved at no charge; if reprocessing can’t resolve it, Wedding Gown Preservation Co. refunds the original preservation cost.
Do I have to register or activate my guarantee?
No registration needed — your guarantee is automatically on file the moment your preservation order is processed. If you ever need to make a claim, just call us with the name or order number on the original order and we’ll look it up.
What if The Wedding Dress Preservation Company is no longer in business in 50 years?
Your dress is cleaned and preserved through Wedding Gown Preservation Co., a family-owned facility in Endicott, NY that has operated continuously since 1913 — now in its third generation under the Schapiro family. A business with over a century of history and a family commitment to its craft is built for the long term, and your guarantee is backed by that same foundation.
A promise like this takes a century to earn. Read our story — or hear directly from the brides we’ve served on our reviews page.