You might be excited to put on your wedding dress for the big day, but you still have to wait for your time to walk down the aisle. If you bought the dress, but the wedding is still a few days, weeks or months away, then how are you supposed to store your wedding dress?
If you want your dress to be preserved and look just as good on the day you wear it as when you tried it on in the boutique, then you should follow our tips for how to store a dress before a wedding.
What Does Your Bridal Boutique Suggest You Do?
The wedding boutique you bought the dress from will likely give you advice on how to store it. Depending on the material the dress is made of and the design, it may need to be stored in a specific way to help it retain its look and fit.
So, your best option for storing your wedding dress is to talk to the boutique you purchased it from and listen to the advice they have for you. They should know better than anyone how to store that particular dress.
What Is the Ideal Way to Store a Wedding Dress?
Maybe the boutique isn’t very helpful, and they don’t have any advice to give you on storing your wedding dress. They might have left you hanging, but we won’t.
No matter what kind of wedding dress you have, you should store it in a cool and dry place. If the dress gets wet, it could start to develop mold or become stained or otherwise damaged. Keeping it dry is your best method for protecting it, and you should keep it from getting too hot so there is no shrinkage or sun damage to the coloring.
The best place to store most wedding dresses is in your closet, where sunlight cannot get to it and water is not likely to affect it. You should hang the dress in the closet and not let other clothing crowd it. If you squeeze it into the closet and don’t give it adequate space, then the dress can become crumpled and lose some of its shape.
Keep the dress hanging off the ground so that it doesn’t bunch up at the bottom and so it is less likely to be water damaged. Your dress may be very long and may not hang well in the closet without touching the floor. If you have an extra-long dress, you can try hanging it from a higher location or using a separate hanger to lift the train. If neither of those is an option, then you can lay the dress out flat on an elevated surface, like a bed or couch.
If the dress came with a plastic cover, it is best to keep that in place until you are ready to wear the dress. This helps protect the dress from water damage and dust. The cover serves as an extra layer of protection for your outfit, so there is less chance that it will become damaged.
How Long Can You Keep Your Wedding Dress in Storage?
What should you do if you have to store your wedding dress for more than a few weeks? Does the ideal storage method change at all?
You still want to keep the dress in a cool, dry place, off the floor and away from anything that might damage it. All of that still applies, but we would also suggest that you try on the wedding dress once a month up to your wedding date.
The fact is that your body will change, and those changes can happen from week to week, depending on how you feel, what you eat, and how much or how little exercise you get. All of these factors can change the shape and size of your body, so they might affect how well the wedding dress fits you.
Putting on the dress once a month gives you a good idea about how well the dress fits and if it needs to be adjusted.
Your last try-on session should be a couple weeks before the wedding so that you have time to get any adjustments done that are needed.
You should also have your bridesmaids try on their wedding dresses periodically, if their dresses are also being kept in long-term storage. We understand the allure of buying a dress well ahead of time because you got a good deal or you found a dress you absolutely have to have, but you need to be aware of the reality of your changing body.
Should You Always Hang Your Dress?
Not all wedding dresses should be stored on a hanger in a closet. If your dress has ornate beading or other heavy decorations, then hanging the dress might not be the best option. The heavy décor can pull down the stitching on the dress, using the weight of gravity to damage it over time. In these cases, it is best to store the dress flat.
You can do this by first laying the dress out flat on your bed and then folding it carefully. Then, store the dress away somewhere that will allow it to stay flat the entire time. Don’t rest anything on top of the dress, and make sure that it is off the floor and away from anywhere it might be damaged by water, heat or sunlight.
So, How Important is Wedding Dress Storage?
How you store your wedding dress is incredibly important, because that will determine the condition the dress is in when you take it out of storage and prepare to wear it. Keep in mind that if you don’t have a great place to store it at your home, you may want to store it at the home of a close friend.
A wedding dress can be quite the investment, and you don’t want to take the risk of accidentally losing that investment. We want your dress to look amazing on you on your big day, so follow the storage tips we have given you for best results.
