Wedding Gownzero carbon gown preservation

Ensure the beauty of your special gown and safeguard our planet’s future

When you choose Bellingham Cleaners, a Certified Wedding Gown Specialist™, to give your beautiful gown the care it deserves, you also choose to clean your gown in an environmentally manner and help safeguard the future of our planet.

The Association of Wedding Gown Specialists which Bellingham Cleaners is a member of asked Carbonfund.org, the leading nonprofit provider of carbon offsets and climate solutions, to help calculate the carbon footprint of the process of cleaning your wedding gown and preserving your wedding gown. The Association included everything that goes into the process of cleaning and preserving your wedding gown from your trip to and from one of its Certified Wedding Gown Specialists™ to the cleaning procedures to the wedding chest’s manufacture.

We account for the carbon footprint of your wedding gown preservation with our donations to Carbonfund.org, the leading nonprofit carbon offset and climate solutions organization, and Carbonfund.org uses our donations to help fund reforestation projects worldwide.

It’s a green thing!™

The members of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists are the first in the industry to offer carbon-neutral wedding gown cleaning and wedding gown preservation and our ZeroCarbon™ gown preservations are unique. Look for the ZeroCarbon™ label and look for our logo! Only a MuseumCare™ wedding gown preservation from a Certified Wedding Gown Specialist™ is true protection for you and your bridal gown.

Heirloom Gown Preservation & Vintage Gown Restoration is Our Specialty

All the advantages for you of our MuseumCare™ wedding gown preservations including archival-quality storage materials and written international guarantee honored by Association members around the world. Our wedding gown preservations are also endorsed by the Association of Bridal Consultants plus our donation goes to Carbonfund.org to support reforestation projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

CF PartnerProud partner of Carbonfund.org
association-of-bridal-consultants
Endorsed by Association of Bridal Consultants Member of the American Institue for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Objects

CLEANING

A Precious Possession

Wedding Gown

Your wedding gown is one of your most precious possessions. It is a symbol of an important event in your life and should be treated with special care. Whether you are borrowing it from a relative or buying it new, your gown deserves professional attention. The key to beautifully cleaning and preserving your gown is to begin the process as soon as possible. Stains will not have time to set and/or oxidize, which can make it much more difficult to achieve complete stain removal.

At Bellingham Cleaners we clean your gown by environmentally friendly methods and use only 100% acid free boxes, tissue paper and body forms. Your gown will be packed in a MuseumCare™ Preservation museum quality archival wedding chest that can be opened whenever you so choose. You will be provided with cotton gloves that will enable you to handle your gown before safely returning it to your re-sealable chest.

Do not be fooled by companies offering inexpensive acid neutral preservation boxes, tissue and body forms! There is a good possibility that these acid neutral items will become acidic over time and cause your wedding gown to discolour.

As proud members of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists, we are licensed to use the safest, most environmentally friendly and effective methods developed for preservation and restoration of all heirloom fabrics. Preservation is the cleanest, provides the safest packaging environment and offers the most comprehensive guarantee.

wedding gown specialists

Click here for additional information on the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists and to view an informative video on their website.

Caring for textiles and garments worn for special occasions can prolong their beauty and reduce deterioration over time. With proper treatment, your garments made new today can become the family heirlooms for generations. A little extra effort now can enrich the lives of family members to come.

PRESERVATION

Free Personal Consultation

We will gladly give you a free consultation and estimate for the care of any fabric, new or vintage. All gowns are thoroughly inspected with the customer with emphasis on fabric construction, existing damage, and stain identification. Bring your treasured item to our Bates location and we’ll propose the right solution.

Alterations

Wedding Gown

Before your wedding let our experienced seamstresses handle the intricacies of your wedding gown. You can trust our specialists to ensure your dress fits you perfectly.

Hand Cleaning

We hand treat and clean each gown individually—never in combination with other items to be cleaned. We take every precaution to protect delicate beads, sequins, embroidery, and lace during the cleaning process.

Anti-Sugar Stain Treatment

Spills containing sugar, salt, and acid often dry clear and cannot be seen. These latent stains do not dissolve during the ordinary dry cleaning process and will develop with age through oxidation causing discolouration, fabric weakness and damage to the gown. Our unique anti-sugar stain treatment ensures that all sugar, salt and acid, visible or not, is removed.

Wedding Gown

Hand Finishing

Your gown is gently and completely hand ironed to perfection. This is the phase of the procedure where extreme care must be taken to follow the designer’s lines. We treat each gown with the same care we would lavish on our own family heirlooms.

Inspection

We inspect your wedding gown from top to bottom looking for remaining stains, missing beads or sequins, loose threads and open seams. We rectify whatever is necessary and repeat the complete inspection process again in order to meet our quality control standards.

Post Inspection

You may arrange to inspect your wedding gown before final preservation is completed.

inspection

MuseumCare™ Preservation – Environmentally Pure, Lasting Protection

Vacuum or plastic seals, foam, plastic and other acidic materials will damage your gown over time. All foam and plastic components of your gown are removed from it if easily done so. Your bridal gown is layered with our 100% acid free tissue paper and carefully folded into a 100% acid free, museum quality, archival wedding chest. Your Wedding Gown Specialist box is then closed, our gold international guarantee is placed on your wedding chest and then slipped into an outer protective carton.

Attached to the exterior of every outer carton are the plastic and foam components of the gown and 100% white cotton gloves. After our brides put on their gloves they are able to touch and see their gowns whenever they desire without damaging their dress. This is to eliminate the possibility of soil, perspiration or body oil on your hand causing a stain.

For customers who do not want to invest in an archival quality wedding chest we highly recommend and offer for sale a 100% cotton muslin wedding gown storage bag.

INTERNATIONAL GUARANTEE

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Our written international guarantee is backed by members of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists represented in more than 500 cities around the world and offer a lifetime guarantee against sugar stains or yellowing of your gown.

When your gown is to be worn again, just return it to any participating Wedding Gown Specialist who will inspect and press the gown at no charge! Improper handling of the wedding gown without the supervision of a Certified Wedding Gown Specialist™ may cause damage and compromise the true preservation of your wedding gown.

You can trust us to give your gown the individual care and attention it truly deserves.

CANADA WIDE RECOGNITION & SERVICE

Both the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists and Bellingham Cleaners are well respected throughout Canada. Bellingham Cleaners accepts wedding gowns for cleaning, restoration and preservation from across Canada. Once processing of your gown has been completed we will ship it back to you with proper insurance coverage.

EMERGENCY BRIDAL GOWN CLEANING AND CARE

wedding gown

Always have safety pins on hand. All too often someone steps on your bridal gown or you catch your bridal gown on something, and pins will get you through the day. Be prepared for a broken bustle loop, torn strap or broken zipper. In fact, full service bridal salons often put several safety pins into the underside of the bridal gown for just such accidents. In a pinch you can use sticky tape or even staples, but you run the risk of damaging the fabric of the wedding gown. Better to avoid pinches. Ask your on-site consultant, mom, maid of honor, favorite aunt or mistress of ceremonies to bring a handful of safety pins to the ceremony and reception.

Know the fabric of your wedding gown. Your consultant at the bridal shop should be able to advise you on fiber content and what to do in case of a spill. When you spill something on artificial fiber, it is much easier to get rid of the stain than if you spill something on a natural fiber such as silk. Natural fibers are hollow and absorb the spill. In either case, unless the spill is major and makes you uncomfortable, better leave the spot alone until you can get professional treatment for your bridal gown. If you must do something and the stain is coffee, mud, blood, tea or some other water-soluble stain, dab the spot gently with cool water and air dry. Club soda will also work.

CAUTION

Silks and rayons, particularly silk and rayon velvets, are water-sensitive and may have permanent water spots if something is spilled on them or you use water to try and remove a stain.

Try camouflaging spots on your wedding gown with something white and relatively harmless such as baking soda, cornstarch, or baby powder (white-out and shoe polish are tricky)—especially if the stain is not water soluble. Grease, lipstick, and other cosmetics can only be dissolved by solvents such as cigarette-lighter fluid. If the solvent contains alcohol, it can also dissolve any dye that may have been used to color your wedding gown. Again, better leave the spot alone until you can get professional treatment for your wedding gown.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL

No matter how much you love your gown, try to remember your family and friends share your happiness on your special day. They will be looking at you and not for spots or tears on your bridal gown!

wedding gown