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Wedding Planning > Wedding
Fashion
Tips
on Preserving Your Wedding Gown
By Kathy
Boyd-McLaughlin
Every
bride should protect her investment by having her wedding gown
professionally cleaned and stored. An expert dry cleaner or gown
preservationist can make certain that your heirloom dress is
protected from soil and age so it looks as new in 20 years as it did
the day you wore it.
It's
all too common to find, years later, that your wedding gown wasn't
properly cleaned. Spills are lethal to a dress. Body oils turn the
fabric yellow. If a dress isn't cleaned properly, stains appear and
are sometimes difficult to remove. And if the dress is poorly made,
it may fall apart when it's dry-cleaned.
Not
every bride chooses to pack her wedding gown away in a box. It is
perfectly acceptable to have your gown altered for use as a dress
for special occasions. You should have your dress properly cleaned
within 1 - 6 months after the wedding to preserve its beauty. You
may not see them, but white wine and champagne stains will turn the
fabric in a few months.
Here
are more tips:
-
Find
a dry cleaner that advertises expert cleaning of wedding gowns. Ask
the cleaner if he/she uses different solvents on gowns than on regular
clothing. Standard solvents are too harsh for wedding gowns. These
gowns must be cleaned with the gentlest cleaners in an acid-free
environment.
-
Ask
if you can see the dress before it is packed. That way, you can see
for yourself if all visible stains have been removed prior to storage.
-
Wedding
gowns should be stuffed with clean, acid free tissue. Acid-free tissue
placed between the folds of the dress and stuffed in the bodice will
prevent permanent wrinkles and folds as well as help stabilize the
environment of the box.
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