Your wedding dress is one of the most special garments you will ever wear and is something to treasure for the rest of your life. It deserves specialist care to keep it looking as good as the day you got married. Here’s Wedding Eye’s tips to keep your wedding dress perfect.
Treat it like a precious heirloom
Keeping your wedding dress in pristine condition after the Big Day requires more than stuffing it into a bag in the attic.
Gowns are made from the most beautiful and delicate fabrics, such as satin, tulle, organza and lace. They don’t behave like everyday materials such as cotton. That’s why they look so exquisite when they’re made into wedding gowns. Keeping your dress perfect means it needs delicate handling to preserve it in the best possible condition.
After your wedding day, don’t be tempted to put it back into the storage bag it came in and forget about it. Plastic storage bags are good for a few weeks or so but they won’t keep your dress in perfect condition for years.
Let the professionals help
We recommend that you book your dress to be dry cleaned by a specialist wedding dress cleaner as soon after your wedding as possible. You might think that it’s not dirty, but it will need a good clean. Over the course of the Big Day it will have absorbed perspiration and picked up marks over that will really show while the dress is in storage. You need to get them out now or they’ll be impossible to get rid of.
The fluid used in the dry-cleaning process also deters insects from settling on the your dress and laying their eggs in it.
The best way to keep your wedding dress perfect is to wrap it in acid-free paper. Fold it neatly and store it in a box with a fitted lid that’s made of breathable material. Wrapping it in several layers of acid-free paper stops the dress from staining and yellowing. The box prevents insects such as moths from getting in and ruining the dress.
It’s also a good idea to take your dress out of its storage place every year or so. Check it over thoroughly and re-fold it so that crease marks don’t settle in one place. Make sure the acid-free paper is a similar colour to your dress. Over time, dyes in the paper can leach out onto your dress and stain it.
Don’t put it in the attic
Keep your dress away from light, heat and damp. Light fades the fabric, while heat and damp will create condensation and mould which will destroy your dress.
To keep your wedding dress perfect we don’t recommend that you store it on a hanger. Doing this puts stress on the seams and will pull it out of shape.
Don’t store your dress in a plastic box as it will create humidity inside. Condensation will degrade the fabric or make it go mouldy.
Follow these tips and your dress will look as perfect in three decades as it did on the day you said your vows.
