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Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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“Mothers are like buttons.
They hold everything together.”
                                                                    — Anon

Happy Mother’s Day from the Margaret’s family. We celebrate all the ways mothers make the world go round. Thank you for all you do and the love you share.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year, 2021!

Happy New Year, 2021!

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Happy New Year! Thank you for your business in 2020. Our Margaret’s Family and Staff look forward to serving you in 2021 and wish you and your family good health and happiness.

This year, Margaret’s celebrates 68 years of wardrobe care and cleaning since Margaret Clutter first opened her sweater cleaning service in La Jolla in 1953. Current owners John and Barbara Horst and their extended family celebrate 33 years of ownership carrying on Margaret’s tradition of excellence in wardrobe care and expanding services to include bridal preservation, vintage and home furnishing fabric restoration and Clean-By-Mail worldwide. Thank you for making us your trusted dry cleaner. 🌿 💚

NEW Bridal Gown Decontamination Service at Margaret’s Cleaners

NEW Bridal Gown Decontamination Service at Margaret’s Cleaners

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As the retail industry begins to re-open during this COVID-19 crisis, we want you to know that Margaret’s Bridal Team is here to support you with our Bridal Gown Decontamination Service.

Early on in this pandemic we began to envision what type of services we could offer to help our clients and retailers. We have been monitoring all the information available and have developed unique processes and equipment to assist with the decontamination of both new wedding dresses and customer-owned gowns.

We have a decontamination option that doesn’t require a full cleaning for gowns and limits exposure to staff and brides between customer try-ons in-store and online.

We are proud to offer our Southern California retail partners an affordable, expedited, proprietary decontamination service suited for EVERYTHING–all fabrics, embellishments and different types of bridal gowns and articles that are currently in your inventory, as well as client returns.

For most items, we would be conducting both heat dwell treatment and Hydroxyl exposure. Both treatments, individually, are adequate for decontamination and safe for new merchandise.

Margaret's Decontamination Service Process 1

Margaret's Cleaners Decontamination Service Process 2 Hydroxyl

With this service, garments stay on their original hangers and it will NOT be necessary to remove the security ID tags. We can also decontaminate display pieces, furnishings or any other items that are in need of decontamination.

Our drivers are available in our local delivery areas for pick-up and delivery. If you have three or more gowns, pickup and delivery are COMPLIMENTARY.

Please feel free to call our Bridal Manager, Amy Polozzolo, directly at 858-429-7261 with any questions. We care about your success and want to help you and your business stay safe, healthy and profitable.

Click the link to read more or download and save it to your phone or computer: Margaret’s Bridal Gown Retailer Decontamination Service.

For Wedding Planners: How to Choose a Wedding Gown Specialist

For Wedding Planners: How to Choose a Wedding Gown Specialist

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Trust is the essence of love and a successful, worry-free wedding. In the same way that a bride puts her trust in an ABC wedding planner to relieve her stress, you want to be able to refer a wedding gown specialist you trust who will make sure your bride is ecstatic about her gown so she can bask worry-free in the beauty of her day.

Based on our 31 years of bridal gown care and thousands of successful gown fittings, cleanings, and preservations, here are ten recommendations that can help you find the ideal wedding gown specialist:

  • Plan Ahead. Encourage your brides to budget upfront for wedding gown services
    Include a line-item estimate in your bride’s initial wedding budget to insure her gown’s legacy and value are preserved. When brides plan and budget upfront for pre- and post-wedding gown care, financial surprises are avoided and gown repurposing options for anniversaries, future generations, or resale are assured. Every gown is unique, so take the time to answer a few questions over the phone or fill out an online estimate request to determine the cost for the services needed. Here’s a sample of our form. (http://www.margarets.com/Bridal-Estimate-Request.html)

  • Schedule an appointment with a gown alteration expert as soon as a bride’s dress is selected. Fitting appointments and pre-wedding pressing services are as time-sensitive as every other wedding service.

  • Interview the bridal team for sensitivity to your bride’s personal preferences. When a bride comes in for a fitting, our seamstress’ goal is to make the bride feel as special, excited and relieved as the day she found her dress. We strive to pay extraordinary attention to her details, affirm her personal preferences, and keep her and/or you in the loop as much or as little as she would like.

  • Look for specialty services that are all handled in one location to prevent details falling through the cracks. Not every salon provides all-in-one gown services. There are often many moving parts for gown care that need meticulous tracking including alterations, gown cleaning and pressing, gown delivery and pick-up, preservation and storage.

  • Have the gown pressed a few days before the wedding and delivered to the venue. Prearranged pressing and delivery assures a beautiful gown for photos. Your brides can receive a Bridal Emergency Kit for day-of-wedding needs, including safety pins, make-up mask, needle and thread, fashion tape for potential wardrobe malfunctions and the magical “Janie Stick” to camouflage or remove stains.

    Bridal Gown Pressing and Preservation by Margaret's the Couture Cleaner

  • Use gown specialists that engage in environmentally sustainable cleaning and preservation techniques. With our Legacy preservation services, your bride’s gown is inspected in a multi-spectrum light room, repaired, cleaned in one of 99 proprietary solvents (always fresh, never recycled and specific to fabric), and preserved in an acid-free museum quality archival box accompanied by a preservation inspection report with before and after photos and long term care instructions.

  • Arrange for next day pick-up of the gown at the wedding location, the bride’s home or from someone you trust. You and your bride have enough to think about, much less worry about after-wedding gown details. Next day pick-up takes the worry out of dealing with stains or damages the gown may incur at the wedding from all the fun your bride is having.

  • Choose a gown specialist who has a lot of experience dealing with last-minute wedding oops! When things don’t go as planned, you want someone you can count on to save the gown while you save the day. As an industry leader and trusted resource for bridal gown alterations, cleaning and preservation services, Margaret’s expert bridal team has seen and saved gowns from all kinds of last-minute surprises including a guest spilling red wine down a bride’s gown skirt; a dog peeing on a bride’s gown; a bride rushing to us the day before her wedding when another cleaner iron-burned the front bodice of her gown and a bride who let her “trash-the-dress” silk gown sit in the back seat of her car in the sun for three weeks while she was on her honeymoon and the stains dissolved the fabric. Fortunately, all these gowns were rescued and lived happily-ever-after.

    Bridal Gown Preservation by Margaret's the Couture Cleaner

  • If you’re planning a destination wedding, inquire about clean-by-mail services and how shipping and storage of gowns are handled. A guaranteed delivery tracking service is critical to timely delivery. With preservation, museum-quality archival boxing and storage facilities for long term preservation will protect your bride’s gown for generations to come.

  • Seek out members of the Association of Wedding Gown Specialists (AWGS) for continuing education, innovative best practices, and museum-quality archival preservation products and certified services. Margaret’s is a proud and grateful member of AWGS. 

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We treasure our relationships with our wedding planners and are always looking for ways to make your job easier and wow your brides. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at bridal@margarets.com. We’d love to hear from you.

To learn more about Margaret’s Cleaner’s Couture Bridal services, go to  www.margarets.com/bridal/drawing.

Join us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/margaretscouturebridalcareInstagram (www.instagram.com/margaretscouturebridal).

Watch our new video (http://www.margarets.tv/margarets/Margarets-Introduction-Video.html ) because. . .

A wedding dress isn’t just a dress, it’s a love story worth treasuring.