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CHOOSE A SKIN
All information comes directly from the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. There are footnotes at the bottom of each section and a complete list of those writings used can be found here.
Following the Eldar's long fight against the forces of Morgoth "[t]hey were admitted again to the love of Manwë and the pardon of the Valar, and the Teleri forgave their ancient grief, and the curse was laid to rest." 1 However, Galadriel chose to stay for a time longer in Middle-earth, as did her husband Celeborn and Cirdan the Shipwright.
However, in the ever continuing exploration of contradictory information there are also many versions of information regarding whether or not Galadriel was permitted to return to Valinor. According to the text I quoted before it would seem that the ban on her return was removed by the Valar after the defeat of Melkor and that she simply decided to linger in Middle-earth. In a letter written in 1967 Tolkien gives another answer, and that excerpt is quoted in the Unfinished Tales by his son.
"The Exiles were allowed to return -- save for a few chief actors in the rebellion, of whom at the time of The Lord of the Rings only Galadriel remained. At the time of her Lament in Lórien she believed this to be perennial, as long as the Earth endured. Hence she concludes her lament with a wish or prayer that Frodo may as a special grace by granted a purgatorial (but not penal) sojourn in Eressëa, the solitary isle in sight of Aman, though for her the way is closed. Her prayer was granted -- but also her personal ban was lifted, in reward for her services against Sauron, and above all for her rejection of the temptation to take the Ring when offered to her. So at the end we see her taking ship."2
Was her return forbidden? Did she simply wish to remain? Did she just believe herself forbidden when she was not actually so? There are many twists you could put on this information.
1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002) 305.
2 J.R.R. Tolkien, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980) 229.