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Home > Guides > Shipping a chandelier
Crate it. A chandelier is too fragile and too awkwardly shaped for a regular box: the standard method is a wooden crate with the fixture immobilized inside, arms braced so nothing moves, and crystals removed, wrapped individually, and packed separately. Photograph the wiring and assembly before you take anything apart.
A chandelier fails in ways a box cannot prevent. The arms work as levers: a bump at the rim multiplies into serious force at the joint. Crystals are hard but brittle, and they chip against each other. The whole fixture is top-heavy and round, so it rolls. A wooden crate solves all three: rigid walls that do not flex, room for serious internal bracing, and a shape you can bolt or strap the fixture to. For an inexpensive modern fixture, a double-walled box with heavy bracing can work. For anything antique, crystal, or valuable, the crate is not optional.
Before you disassemble anything, photograph everything: the wiring connections, the order of the crystal strands, how the arms attach. Those photos are your reassembly manual and your insurance documentation in one. Label the parts with painter's tape as they come off.
Take the fixture apart as far as it sensibly goes. Remove every crystal, bobeche, and shade: these travel separately, each wrapped in tissue or bubble wrap, packed in a divided box so nothing touches anything else. Coil the chain and wrap it on its own; a loose chain swinging inside a crate will scratch everything it reaches. Remove the bulbs. Cap the exposed wire ends with wire nuts and tape.
Now immobilize the frame. Wrap each arm individually in foam or bubble wrap, then brace the arms so they cannot flex: corrugated cardboard cut to fit between arms works, as do foam blocks. The goal is a fixture that cannot move at all inside its crate. Fill every remaining void with packing material. Then close the crate and make sure the finished package does not rattle when you tilt it: silence is the sound of a chandelier that will survive.
| Part | How it travels |
|---|---|
| Crystals, bobeches, shades | Removed, individually wrapped, in a divided box |
| Chain | Removed, coiled, wrapped separately |
| Arms | Wrapped in foam, braced so they cannot flex |
| Wiring | Photographed first, ends capped with wire nuts |
| Frame | Immobilized inside a wooden crate, all voids filled |
Chandeliers are exactly the item where declared value matters. Photograph the fixture assembled before disassembly, keep receipts or an appraisal, and declare the real replacement value, not the price you hope it is worth. Antique fixtures are hard to value after a loss, so the pre-shipment photos and any appraisal paperwork do real work in a claim. Read the carrier's fine print on antiques and items with glass or crystal: some policies exclude or limit them unless you buy the right coverage tier.
Most chandeliers are far over parcel weight limits and all of them are oversized, so this is a freight or specialty-crate-shipper job, not a label-printer job. LetterAgent's shipping labels are Canada-only Xpresspost capped at 5 kg: perfect for a small parcel, not for a crate. For the chandelier, get quotes from carriers that handle crated freight and compare their declared-value terms, not just the transport price.
Skipping the disassembly. Almost every chandelier horror story starts with someone wrapping the whole fixture in a moving blanket and hoping for the best. The arms flex, the crystals hammer each other, and the blanket does nothing about the arm joints taking the force. The second most common is a crate with empty space in it: an immobilized fixture in a half-empty crate is a fixture that gets to build up speed before it hits the wall. Pack it tight, brace everything, and leave nothing loose.
Ready to ship it? Get a shipping label with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and get your label.
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