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| Finding the Perfect Dress | * The wedding is over, now you have to decide what to do with that beautiful, expensive dress.
- You can put it on a hangar in the back of your closet, where any stains will set and be very difficult to remove at a later time.
- You need to ask your bridal shop or wedding consultant in advance for the name of a gown preservationist.
Lots of dry cleaners claim to clean wedding gowns, but most are not experts in preservation.
* There are two cleaning methods used by preservationists.
- Some use the wet cleaning method, this entails washing the dress by hand with a mild cleanser, that removes visible and invisible stains (champagne and sugar)
- Other companies use the dry cleaning method, where stains are pre-treated and then put in a dry cleaning machine.
- Once the dress is cleaned, it is wrapped in white acid free tissue paper or unbleached muslin.
Usual tissue paper has acids that can stain and eventually eat holes in your dress. Next, the wrapped dress is placed in an acid free or paperboard box. From time to time the box has a viewing window of acetate. Keep the box from direct light to keep the dress from becoming yellow.
Having your dress cleaned and packaged by preservationist of good reputation can cost between $200- $400 depending on where you live. Before sending your gown off to be done, ask if the work is done on site.
Find out if you have to sign a disclaimer and sometimes say that the company is not responsible for damage done during the preservation processes, You should seek out a preservationist who will guarantee her or his work.
To preserve your dress never wrap it in plastic, don't hang it on an ordinary wood or wire hangar, because the dress could stretch and distort from its own weight. And don't try to clean stains, this could cause them to set.
* After the wedding you can do things to prolong the life of the dress.
- Wrap the dress in unbleached muslin, or a white sheet, and store in a sturdy box under your bed.
- Then, as soon as possibly, you can take the gown to a professional preservationist; Some day your daughter may want to wear it on her wedding day.
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