Wedding Dress Cleaning & Preservation
“The most reputable wedding dress specialist in the D.C. area.” – Washingtonian Magazine
Your wedding is one of the most important occasions in your life. Trust your wedding dress cleaning and preservation to the most established and award-winning dry cleaner in the metro Washington, DC area.
Parkway Custom Drycleaning is one of North America’s foremost experts on wedding dress cleaning, preservation, and restoration. We have been gently hand-cleaning, air-drying and hand finishing simple bridal dresses and elaborate wedding gowns since 1926. We are dedicated to excellence and bring our decades of experience serving many of the nations’ leading bridal gown boutiques and department stores to restoring all types of wedding gowns – styles and designs – from vintage to ultra-contemporary.
Please consider our wedding dress cleaning and preservation service today.
For more information about our services and pricing, please contact us by calling 301-652-3377, emailing us at admin@parkwaydrycleaning.com, or completing the form below. While we offer pick-up and delivery in the metro Washington DC area including the Maryland suburbs and Northern Virginia, many of our customers prefer to visit us at our store located at 5455 Randolph Road in N. Bethesda, situated between Nebel Street & Parklawn Drive. We love to meet our brides and with a visit we can inspect your wedding dress together to review cleaning options and identify any mending that might be required after the big day.
Get A Wedding Dress Quote Today
We bring our award winning expertise to each and every wedding dress we clean
- We have been gently hand-cleaning and air-drying gowns since 1926. Throughout the years, we’ve fine-tuned our skills and mastered the processes of preserving and caring for wedding gowns.
- Parkway Custom Drycleaning is one of North America’s foremost experts on wedding dress cleaning, preservation, and restoration.
- Our dedication to excellence and experience serving many of the area’s leading wedding dress boutiques has earned us several local and national awards, including “Best of the knot,” Washingtonian magazine’s “Best area wedding dress cleaner,” and the America’s Best Cleaners Award.
Our Wedding Gown Cleaning Process
Many brides ask us how we do the cleaning, preservation, and restoration of their precious wedding dresses.
- Parkway uses a very gentle odorless eco-friendly process that is delicate and especially effective on beads, sequins, lace, trims, and vintage fabric.
- The processes we have developed have been employed here for decades, and the combined wedding dress cleaning experience of our spotting and finishing staff is now approaching 75 years.
- All wedding dresses are hand-spotted, air-dried, and hand-pressed. The veil and headpiece are hand-spotted and cleaned as required.
- Each wedding dress is inspected several times throughout our process. The condition of the fabric is studied, difficult stains are tested, and nuances like bows, pleating, and overlayers are noted and addressed. Each wedding dress is given the unique attention that it so rightly deserves.
Wet Cleaning Wedding Dresses
Many stains such as hem soil, yellow spillage, “invisible stains”, and general discoloration are often not removable by dry cleaning. For these stains, we turn to our wet cleaning department for further stain removal and restoration.
Wet cleaning is a water-based restoration method. The wedding dress is bathed by hand with a neutral organic detergent designed specifically for fragile fabrics. The above-mentioned stains usually respond well to wet cleaning by this method. Only a well-trained staff should attempt this method as shrinkage and significant texture changes can result if this method is attempted by an inexperienced organization.
Parkway Custom Drycleaning has been wet cleaning wedding dresses for decades, and the results are often extraordinary! Our most experienced spotter has over 35 years of experience fine tuning her craft.
Wedding Dress Preservation & Boxing
The wedding dress preservation process involves delicately packaging your wedding dress, veil and other accessories in an archival quality pH-neutral preservation box surrounded by acid-free tissue and a muslin cover. This shields your wedding gown against potential yellowing, ensuring that every delicate detail of your wedding dress is protected for decades to come.
Here are a few things to keep in mind about your cleaned and preserved dress:
- Your wedding dress should be stored in a cool, dry place that is not subject to direct sunlight or significant changes in temperature and humidity. This will ensure that the wedding gown will not deteriorate over time. We offer storage in our climate controlled storage vault should you wish to consider offsite storage.
- The wedding dress preservation box is not permanently sealed and it is recommended that you check your gown periodically and carefully re-fold your wedding dress so as not to create permanent creases.
- We suggest that your hands be clean and free of all oils when you inspect your wedding dress. As part of our service we provide complementary white inspection gloves that we recommend you wear any time you open the box to inspect your bridal dress.
- For best long term storage results, we also recommend that you have your wedding dress preservation box re-tissued with fresh acid-free tissue every five years or so, which we offer for you for a nominal fee.
Restoring Second & Third Generation Wedding Dresses
Restoring wedding dresses to their original state is part of the magic we perform. Weakness of fibers due to age, improper storage, staining, perspiration and light exposure are concerns that need to be recognized, and our experienced staff has several techniques to address these areas and bring a wedding dress back to life.
Restyling & Alterations
Whether it is creating a new bustle for you, adding lace, applying new beading and ornamentation, restyling a wedding dress, or performing a minor alteration, our couture-quality seamstresses are some of the most experienced in the greater Washington – Baltimore area. With decades of experience, they will personally tend to all your needs. There may be a basting, a fitting or two, and then a final appointment – we’ll do whatever is required to make you look your best on your special day. We recommend calling us for an appointment so our seamstress can reserve time on her calendar for your wedding dress fitting.
Get A Wedding Dress Quote Today!
At Parkway Custom Drycleaning, our goal is provide a complete wedding gown care service that you can rely on, no matter how stained or complicated the cleaning and restoration might be.
Please complete the form on this page, or call or visit us for a price estimate, which can be provided once we know more details about your gown. For a more accurate price estimate, please provide the your gown’s fabric (silk, organza, polyester, etc) and send a few pictures to us at admin@parkwaydrycleaning.com.
Experience the Parkway Difference!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Since our founding 1926, Parkway Custom Drycleaning has made wedding dress cleaning and preservation a unique specialty. We work with many fine bridal boutiques to help refresh and restore their gowns as well as the general public. We apply our extensive experience in quality cleaning, preservation, alterations and even restyling to each and every wedding dress we service.
While we are a bit more expensive than many of the other cleaners, our careful attention to detail has resulted in our “Best of the knot” awards and it is why we have been named Washingtonian magazine’s “Best Area Drycleaner” in reader’s polls.
Wedding dress prices are based on many factors, including the fabric, length of the train, and the design. Heavily beaded and ornate gowns are more challenging, and are priced accordingly. Our methods are very different than most cleaners, as we hand clean, pre- and post- spot, air dry and gently hand finish all gowns in order to preserve the color, size, and texture of your wedding dress investment. Our wedding gown cleaning and preservation service starts at $400 for very simple dresses. Elaborate gowns take much more time to delicately restore and will cost more.
Please complete the form on this page, or call or visit us for a price estimate, which can be provided once we know more details about your gown. For a more accurate price estimate, please provide your wedding dress fabric (silk, organza, polyester, etc) and send a few pictures to us at admin@parkwaydrycleaning.com.
Yes. We have cleaned many wedding dresses for brides after the alteration is complete or when a sample gown is purchased. We also work with area hotels to pick up wedding gowns that are shipped to them for a local wedding. We often just have to press the gown to get it ready for the big day, and sometimes we hand spot a small stain or two that might have occurred during shipment or when the alteration was performed. While we like a few days to properly take care of your gown so you can look your absolute best, we have also turned gowns around in one day and even the same day in a pinch.
We’ll work with the timeframe we are given so that your wedding dress is as close to perfect as it can be!
Preserving your wedding gown in the correct packaging and storing your wedding dress in a climate-controlled and sunlight-free environment is important to ensure that your wedding dress is there for you and the next generation when the time comes. Parkway Custom Drycleaning offers annual storage in our on-site climate controlled storage vault for a reasonable price should you not have a cool, dry and stable environment to store your dress.
Parkway Custom Drycleaning offers pickup and delivery in most of the metro Washington, DC area, including Maryland and Northern Virginia. Our drivers regularly visit the following specific neighborhoods and areas:
Washington, DC: Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill, Cleveland Park, Dupont Circle, Foxhall, Friendship Heights, Georgetown, Glover Park, McLean Gardens, Northwest Washington, Palisades, Spring Valley, Wesley Heights, Woodley Park, Parts of Northeast/Southeast/Southwest DC.
Maryland: Bethesda, Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Glen Echo, Kensington, Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Potomac, Rockville, Parts of Gaithersburg
Northern Virginia: Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, Crystal City, Fairfax, Falls Church, Great Falls, Mclean, Oakton, Reston, Rosslyn, Tysons Corner, Vienna, Parts of Herndon, Parts of Springfield
.. and if your area isn’t included in the list, please call us for more information. We can sometimes send a special driver out to your home or office for a wedding dress pickup.
Yes! We regularly service wedding dresses and other specialty garments and accessories from customers throughout the United States – just ship us your pieces and we will contact you after inspection to go over the details of our process as well as pricing.