How Much Does it Cost to Dry Clean a Wedding Dress?

Wedding dress dry cleaning is essential if you plan to preserve your gown as an heirloom, sell it, donate it, or transform it into a keepsake. In other words, it’s necessary in most cases.

Brides often don’t understand why a wedding dress dry cleaning is necessary unless the gown is covered in severe stains. However, even seemingly clean dresses collect sweat and other stains that may show up later.

You’ve likely spent a lot of money on your wedding dress and love it deeply. Therefore, it’s not something you should dangle up in the closet to save some money on dry cleaning.

Average Wedding Dress Cleaning Cost

The average price of wedding dress dry cleaning is about $150, though you can find prices as low as $75 and as high as $250. However, in most cases, the wedding dress dry cleaning price shouldn’t exceed $200.

Dresses made of delicate, luxurious lace and featuring heavy beading are exceptions. They often require special treatment and experience, so some services can charge as much as $500 for cleaning such gowns.

A significantly higher than average price doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting the best quality. Most likely, the business outsources the dry cleaning to a cheaper company and earns an overhead.

It is always a good idea to ask your local dry cleaning company whether they clean wedding dresses on-premises or send them away to another company.

Many dry cleaning companies don’t have the equipment necessary to clean delicate wedding dress fabric.

If this is the case with your local dry cleaners, skip the middleman and find a company to clean the gown on-premises to avoid the markup.

However, a lower than average price should also raise suspicion. Even the best dry cleaners in the town may not have experience cleaning wedding dresses.

Bridal gowns are very different from any other garment type, and you shouldn’t trust your gown to someone who treats it as a regular dress. Remember that incorrect cleaning may forever ruin your gown.

Mind that the average price is just a baseline. Sometimes, brides have special requirements, such as insurance, rush order, fabric bleaching, or dress delivery, and these add-ons come at an extra fee.

Cost Differences by Location

The average wedding dress dry cleaning price across all states is a very rough estimation of what you’ll have to pay.

Dry cleaning by a bridal boutique in Manhattan will cost differently from dry cleaning by a small company from Beaufort.

The funny thing is, the Manhattan boutique and small dry-cleaning business in Beaufort may even outsource dresses to the same company.

But the price fluctuation is justifiable and easily explainable by the difference in living costs in these regions.

In other words, your location can drastically affect the wedding dress dry cleaning price. The prices are always higher in major metro areas and lower in small towns.

Furthermore, dry cleaning companies in two equally sized towns may also have different rates depending on the state. Economic differences affect every aspect of life, and dry cleaning fees aren’t an exception.

In reality, the main factors affecting the dry cleaning cost aren’t the dress fabric or design. It’s the price of dry cleaning space and worker wages that vary based on the general cost of living in your area.

So, which states have the best prices on wedding dress dry cleaning, and which have it the worst?

According to recent data, brides from New York, California, Maryland, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia pay the highest rates.

Meanwhile, southern states have the best deals – Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana are the cheapest states for wedding dress dry cleaning.

Recently, online wedding dress dry cleaning services have been gaining popularity.

Such companies specialize specifically in wedding gown cleaning, so you can generally expect a higher quality of service than from a one-size-fits-all dry cleaning company.

Another benefit of online dry cleaning services is that you don’t have to leave your home – all you need to do is ship your dress and receive it back at your doorstep. However, this also means added shipping costs.

Cost Differences by Design & Fabric

Your dress design and fabric are important factors affecting the cost of wedding dress dry cleaning. Dresses made from common materials often used in casual clothing, such as cotton and polyester, are the cheapest to clean.

Delicate fabrics such as natural silk, taffeta, and organza, require specialized treatment as they don’t react well to common cleaning detergents. Lace dresses are the most expensive to dry clean.

For example, if you clean a silk gown using Perchloroethylene (PERC), the most common dry cleaning solvent, it will become grey and crinkled. The worst thing is that the damage is irreversible.

For this reason, the company must either pay for expensive equipment suitable for cleaning such fabrics or outsource the work to someone else. Either way, this leads to added costs.

Of course, the fabric condition also matters. Most dry cleaners will neglect minor grass stains or moderate dirt on the hemline – that’s natural, and nearly no wedding dress arrives to dry cleaners in perfect condition.

However, if the stain removal is complicated, the company may charge an extra fee. For example, removing a single oil stain can cost you $15-50, and if there are multiple stains, the costs quickly add up.

Crystals, beads, fringes, sequins, and other embellishments can immensely raise the dry cleaning price as they’re incompatible with the most popular cleaning solvents.

Dry cleaning of gowns with layered skirts also tends to cost more than average, and the more layers, the higher the price.

If you have an exquisite ball gown with ten layers of organza, the dry cleaning company can charge over $500.

On the other hand, dry cleaning of some wedding dresses costs significantly below average due to the design simplicity.

Brides choosing tea-length gowns made from thick cotton without any embellishments can pay as little as $50 or even opt for DIY wedding dress cleaning.

Dry Cleaning vs Dress Preservation Cost

Any bride searching “what to do with a wedding dress after the wedding” will come across the wedding dress preservation option.

Preservation is not to be confused with dry cleaning – while the former involves the latter, it’s a different process.

Wedding dress preservation involves dry cleaning, treating the fabric to slow down the deterioration, and packing the dress into an air-tight box.

This process is more labor and resource-consuming, so the price is higher than dry cleaning.

The average price of wedding dress preservation is about $400, with the lowest price being about $200 and the highest exceeding $700.

The difference depends on the dress fabric, design intricacy, location, and numerous other factors.

“Do I need wedding dress preservation or dry cleaning?” you may wonder. The answer lies in your plans regarding the dress.

If you want to keep it as an heirloom and aren’t going to take it out from your closet for a while, preservation is the right choice. It will help to maintain the initial dress condition for many decades.

However, preservation is unnecessary if you want to look at the dress every so often, sell it, or donate it.

Regular dry cleaning will be sufficient to remove any stains remaining after the wedding and give your dress a fresh look.

Dry Cleaning Insurance Cost

If your chosen dry cleaning company offers insurance, don’t refuse it. In fact, I would recommend refraining from dry cleaning companies that don’t provide any insurance.

The insurance costs about $40 on average, but the price may vary depending on the job complexity and initial gown price. Naturally, the more complex the job and the more expensive the gown, the higher the insurance cost.

In any case, insurance is worth it. It’s an insignificant expense when you consider your wedding dress price.

If anything goes wrong in the process, the company will be obliged to reimburse you for the total cost of the gown and the dry cleaning.

Of course, money won’t bring back a ruined gown, and for many women, their wedding dress carries a symbolic significance.

However, getting your money back is better than nothing, and the dry cleaners will be more careful, knowing they are liable for damages.

Before you hand your dress for dry cleaning, inspect its condition thoroughly. Take a note of all stains and minor rips. Then, check the dress condition after the cleaning to see if any new damages occurred.

Bridal Accessory Dry Cleaning Cost

Bridal accessories, such as shoes, the veil, clutch bag, or gloves, are also susceptible to stains and must be dry cleaned after the wedding if you want to preserve them as an heirloom.

Many companies specialized in wedding dress dry cleaning and preservation offer to include a specified number of accessories for free. However, regular dry cleaners will charge you according to the price list.

Cleaning most accessories won’t cost much, but the same as with the dress, the price depends on the material and design intricacy. Minimalistic satin shoes are much cheaper to clean than shoes covered in beads.