1st February 2007

The ultimate dress; the optimum storage

Every bride knows that her wedding dress is the most significant and exciting garment that she will ever wear.

Lace or satin, simple or elaborate, a wedding dress is both deeply personal and at the same time, stitched into the fabric of society as an important symbol.

Though worn for just a few hours, this is a garment for keeps. Added to which, for many brides, the idea of eventually passing their wedding dress on to their daughter is an inspiring one.

Until now, protecting and preserving the delicate colours, fabrics and embellishments of a wedding dress has presented all kinds of challenges. Despite careful cleaning, wrapping and storing, many wedding dresses fail to stay as fresh and beautiful as when they were first made.

With the introduction of Waterman’s new Wedding Dress Box, for the first time, professional archive standard storage of this most precious of garments is available to the domestic market.

I. Waterman (Box Makers) Limited was established in London in 1897. For many years the company has worked with leading British museums and archives, supplying storage boxes suitable for the protection and preservation of valuable and fragile fabrics, documents and artefacts. At the turn of the Millennium, the company began to develop the Memories and Nostalgia Collection, designed to bring professional standard storage to the consumer market. So began the creation of a family of products which would help to chart and preserve the memories of succeeding generations.

The archive standard Wedding Dress Box is the latest addition to the Memories and Nostalgia Collection which to date, consists of four unique boxes designed to preserve a record of family history and special events. Like all other products in the Collection it contains boxes within boxes, record sheets, certificates, and packing materials, all designed to help commit precious memories and mementoes to long-term storage.

In January 2007 I. Waterman (Box Makers) Limited were delighted to be granted The Royal Warrant of Appointment as a Tradesman to Her Majesty the Queen. The company is a direct supplier of Archive Boxes to the Royal Household.

Waterman’s is proud to provide a quality of product that cannot be surpassed. Its range of archive boxes go beyond any simple definition of ‘acid-free’ or ‘ph neutral’ and are designed meet the most rigorous of international conservation standards. For a bride, this means that her wedding dress, if properly stored, will remain as perfect in every detail as the wedding day itself.

These days, many companies offer storage and preservation boxes which do not meet archival standards. From elaborate to cheap, whatever their cost, they represent a poor investment for the future.

Waterman’s are manufacturers of archival products of distinction. Any bride who decides to store her dress carefully within the Wedding Dress Box can be confident that the Box will live up to its claims – and that, many years from now, her wedding dress will have lost none of its appeal.

Waterman’s manufacturing and production processes are on a par with the quality of its products. All boxes are made from sustainable materials sourced from forests approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international body dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. For every tree felled to make the company’s boxes and papers, three more are planted. Such is its commitment to environmental issues that all the company’s products are recyclable. In the case of archive storage boxes like the Wedding Dress Box, however, all are made to comply with the highest international standards for permanence. So their disposal may not be an issue for centuries to come…

The Wedding Dress Box itself is available in large, medium and standard size, with the large Box available as a flat pack. In addition to ample space for storing the dress itself, each Box contains a range of storage and other materials to help make a lasting record of the wedding day.

Contained within the acid free Wedding Dress Box, there is an acid free shoe and accessory box, 30 sheets of acid free, archive standard tissue paper to carefully pack the wedding dress, plus The Wedding Day Record Sheet, a Diary Sheet, Memo Sheet, Wedding Certificate, Acid Free Certificate Envelope and Identity Tag and Ribbons.

Most importantly, with prices from only £29.99 for the Standard Wedding Dress box, these boxes are eminently affordable today…and as years go by, their ‘value’ as an heirloom and source of nostalgic pleasure will be incalculable.


No garment in the world declares an investment of hope, love and happiness like a wedding dress. And only the Wedding Dress Box can protect it to a standard that simply can’t be bettered.