Your wedding dress is the special piece of clothing you will ever own. You wore it on one of the important days of your life. It deserves to be taken care of after that day is over.
You should not make the mistake of hanging your wedding dress in a closet and assuming it will be fine for years. Unfortunately that is not how it works. And by the time problems show up the damage is often already done to your wedding dress.
Cleaning your wedding dress properly before storing it is one of the important steps you can take to protect your wedding dress for the long term.
What Happens If You Skip the Cleaning Step
If you skip the cleaning step your wedding dress will likely get damaged. Even if your wedding dress looks clean after the wedding it certainly is not. Body oils, sweat, champagne, cake and invisible sugar stains from drinks all get absorbed into the fabric of your wedding dress throughout the day.
These stains are often not visible away.. When your wedding dress sits in storage for months or years those residues oxidize and turn into stubborn yellow or brown spots that are extremely difficult. Sometimes impossible. To remove from your wedding dress.
Skipping the cleaning step does not just risk stains on your wedding dress. It can also attract insects causing fabric breakdown over time both of which can permanently ruin your wedding dress.
Why Professional Cleaning Makes a Difference
Professional wedding dress cleaning is not the same as a dry cleaning run. Specialists who work with wedding gowns understand the fabrics, beading and construction techniques used and they treat each wedding dress accordingly.
They know how to handle lace without causing snags, how to treat embellishments without loosening them and how to clean the inside lining just as thoroughly as the outside of your wedding dress.
Trusting your wedding dress to someone who specializes in this work gives you a better chance of getting your wedding dress back in the same condition it was in or even better than when it came home from the wedding.
What a Good Cleaning Process Covers
A thorough pre-storage clean is more detailed than most people expect. Here is what a quality professional cleaning typically includes:
- Inspection of the wedding dress for visible and invisible stains.
- Spot treatment for any problem areas before the main clean.
- Full cleaning using a method for the fabric type of your wedding dress.
- Careful handling of beading, lace and any decorative details on your wedding dress.
- Steaming to restore the shape of the fabric of your wedding dress.
- Packaging in acid- tissue and a breathable preservation box.
The Sooner You Clean Your Wedding Dress, the Better It Lasts
The longer stains sit in the fabric of your wedding dress the harder they are to remove, some become permanent if left too long.
Try to get your wedding dress to a specialist within a week of the wedding rather than waiting until months have passed. Acting quickly gives the cleaner the possible chance of removing everything completely from your wedding dress.
Storing the Dress the Right Way After Cleaning
Storing your wedding dress the way after cleaning is very important. Cleaning is half of the preservation process. How you store your wedding dress afterwards matters as much as how well it was cleaned.
Keep your wedding dress in a dry place away from direct sunlight. Exposure to light and moisture are two of the causes of yellowing and fabric deterioration over time on your wedding dress.
Avoid storing your wedding dress in a plastic bag or a sealed container with no airflow. Acid-free boxes with tissue paper are the recommended option because they allow the fabric of your wedding dress to breathe while still keeping it protected.
