Restoring an Heirloom Wedding Gown

Your wedding gown is one of the few tangible items from your wedding that you can hold onto for years. Your wedding gown can be shared with your children, grandchildren, nieces/nephews and other family and friends. More often, we are seeing heirloom gowns come in for cleaning and restoration. These are gowns that are more than a few decades old. Whenever someone brings their heirloom gown into us, at Crouse’s Cleaners, I’m in awe of the story it tells of the wedding and that time in the past. It’s an absolute honour to be trusted to restore one of these gowns.

Heirloom gowns can be displayed at an anniversary party or a wedding. It seems that more and more they are being worn by daughters, granddaughters and other family members. There are many seamstresses that are talented at altering or recreating a wedding gown so it can be worn again.

Some tips to remember if you are considering wearing an heirloom gown:

1. Consult with a reputable dry cleaner to determine if the gown can be cleaned, as far in advance as possible. Restoration will depend on the condition of the gown after years of storage, the fabric content and any trim like buttons or appliques. Sometimes the fabric can be quite brittle and won’t hold up to cleaning. Other times the gown will clean beautifully.
2. Consult with a reputable seamstress to determine if the gown can be altered, as far in advance as possible. Depending on what types of alterations need to be done, it can take quite a while to have the alterations done. Especially in a busy wedding season.

If you are curious about having an heirloom gown cleaned, feel free to reach out to our Wedding Gown Specialist, Kathleen. She’ll be happy to answer any questions you have!