What To Do With Your Wedding Gown After The Big Day
I was suggested a number of ideas, a friend said why not go on a trash the dress shoot, which granted sounds fun, but I just don’t think I could go through with getting it all muddy or damaged, plus what you are you suppose to do with it then? Surely that just leads back to my original question.
Another idea was to sell it or give it away to a charity shop, but I don’t think there will ever be a time when I will want to part with it, no matter how much room the tulle skirt takes up, plus there’s always that possibility that I will have a daughter who might want to wear it.
A wild suggestion was to have it framed, I didn’t realise this was a thing, but I’ve googled it and apparently it is getting popular. I think this might be an option in the future when we have wall space to display it, I’m thinking in my dreams a huge walking wardrobe would be the perfect spot for it to shine.
But no matter what I do with it, I knew that I would need to get it cleaned, which kind of scared me as I’ve had such horrors with the dry cleaners before, from damage to the awful chemical smell never going away, and I don’t know what I would do if they destroyed my wedding dress. I can tell you there would be lots of tears!!!
I put these dilemmas to Twitter, like you do, and the lovely people at Miele Professional’s WetCare got in touch and told me about their wet cleaning service, which is kind to clothes, uses 30% less water than conventional machines so more environmental friendly, plus it doesn’t use any harsh chemicals so is great for sensitive skin. I have to be honest I was a little worried to test this service I’d just discovered on my dress, but then I read loads of rave reviews including PoppyD, plus they assured me that the process couldn’t harm my dress, all down to a unique honeycomb drum apparently, whereas I’d already witnessed what dry cleaners can do to clothes, RIP my fabulous silk dress.
The Miele Wet Clean isn’t widely available, list of cleaners here, the closest to me was in North London, so I boxed up my beauty and a courier came to collect. I think he thought I was nuts as I wanted him to show me where he was going to place it in his van, he really didn’t understand the trauma at handing over a wedding dress.
My gown wasn’t trashed, no-one thankfully spilt wine or food on me, I didn’t trip over and I was careful to hitch up my giant tulle skirt when I was walking around outside between photos, but still there was some dirt on the bottom of my skirt, mainly from the dance floor which was filthy.
I inspected every patch of my gown before it went, I was going to share the snaps, but do you care how grubby it got?, and I’ve check it over and it actually looks before than new, you wouldn’t even know that I had worn it. Plus it has a really smell fresh to it, none of that chemical crap from dry cleaners, which made me so happy when I unpacked it.
So now it is all beautifully cleaned, the question still remains, what do I do with it? I’m thinking for now a box will have to do, but even in a box it will take up most of the room, but at least it will be protected. Now to find a wedding box big enough and somewhere to store it as I’ve heard that you shouldn’t keep it in the loft as it can get damaged. For now my wedding gown will just have to keep taking over the guest room, currently laid out on the bed as I don’t have a hook high enough to hang it up, hopefully my future house guests won’t mind sharing with it!
What did you/planning to do with your wedding gown?
**Thanks Miele Professional’s WetCare for doing such a great job with my gown. As always all views are my honest opinion – give it ago you’ll be surprised how great the clean is.**
