Preserving The Wow Factor Of Your Wedding Dress Before, During And After The Event

Preserving The Wow Factor Of  Your Wedding Dress Before, During And After The Event

Let’s say that you get through your big day with no serious staining issues. You still want to take measures to preserve your wedding dress right? Well there’s several ways to go about doing this.

The first thing you want to do is hang your wedding dress by loops within it that are attached to strong side seams, not weak shoulder seams, which would lead to stretching or sagging.

Preserving your wedding dress wow factor before and after the big day

Next, when it comes to how you’ll store your dress after the wedding be sure it won’t be within plastic bags or even vacuum sealed plastic wrapped containers. The reason for this is because plastic gives off certain fumes that can cause yellowing and it can also lock in moisture, which can cause instances of mildew.

Right after your wedding we would recommend that you take measures to have your dress professionally cleaned right away. You would prefer someone who specializes in cleaning and preservation. Taking action immediately after a wedding will ensure protection from staining or discoloration issues.

After you’ve taken proper precautions with your wedding dress after you’re through wearing it, now you’ll need to store it in the right way. The key to preservation here is to store the dress in a place that has a steady and consistent temperature. Putting the dress in a place like the attic or the basement just won’t work, because the temperature of these types of environments varies dramatically depending on what the weather is outside.

We’re assuming you want to keep your wedding dress in good condition so that you can have a chance to pass it down one day. If you follow these methods outlined above, then this won’t be a problem. The dress will remain in good condition for a long time to come and can be worn again in the future.

Now in order to have an easier time preserving your dress it would make sense to know how to treat it beforehand right? Follow these steps and you’ll find that preservation after the actual big day becomes a whole lot easier.

Make sure you’ve invested the time to know all about your wedding dress

Most women get so caught up in the excitement of getting married that they don’t take the time to learn about their wedding dress. We’re not talking about taking the time to pick it out or knowing who designed the dress. We’re talking about understanding what type of fabrics it’s made out of and how to properly protect it from stains.

Fabrics such as polyester for example can be machine washed, while something such as lace has to be cleaned by hand and preferably with cold water. Depending on the type of fabrics your wedding dress is made of it might require you to take it to a professional for cleaning should you get a stain on it. This is due to the increased probability of making things worse should you attempt cleaning on your own.

Don’t rub a stain in an attempt to clean it, using a blotting approach is best

Stains on a wedding dress aren’t all the same. Let’s take food stains for example. You might spill something on you that you’re convinced if you can rub it out quickly, then the sight of it will be either less or you can get rid of it altogether.

Now maybe if the wedding dress you have isn’t so expensive you’re willing to take this risk, but we wouldn’t advise it either way. You see, when you decide to try and rub a stain this is only going to cause the dirt that’s on it, the drink or even grass stains to settle in even more.

So when you wanted to clean it the right way these stains might be even tougher to get out. Blotting is the better approach as this tends to diminish the severity of the stain pretty quickly once it has taken place. Plus with a blotting approach you don’t have to worry about ruining the fabrics of your dress.

Do your best to have some form of emergency stain removal kit on hand in case of a problem

It might be a better idea to get an emergency stain removal kit from the place where you purchase your wedding dress, but believe it or not sometimes these aren’t offered. You might have to take measures to put together your own stain removal kit. Don’t worry though, because this is very simple to do.

The first thing you need is a good quality washcloth to use. Second, you’ll need some plain white soap, unscented is best.  On top of this you’ll require some safety pins, some q-tips, tape that’s double sided, a needle and some thread, white chalk, baby wipes and some baby powder.

The different items within this kit would serve to help you eliminate most minor stains from a wedding dress. Stains that are more severe would be tougher, but these materials can help to diminish the severity of even those stains to the point where they are hardly noticeable.

You would need to have at least a little bit of time after you cleaned a stain off of a wedding dress to let it dry. Extra care has to be taken here. Even a wet spot can be such that it appears as a stain when it’s not.

The correct course of action here is to use a hairdryer on low heat just to be cautious. Ironing can also help, but ironing might not always be the best way to go depending on what type of stain your dress has or how severe it is. Light blow drying would do just fine most of the time.

Dealing with actual stains

If you get a stain on your wedding dress with a little time before your wedding, then it’s very likely that you may have time to get to a professional in order to take care of things. What if you get a stain during the reception though or with just a very short time to go before the ceremony?

These can be nightmarish scenarios for a lot of women who have mentally played out their big day in their heads over and over. A simple stain, even if it’s not all that big can greatly diminish the joy the day is supposed to bring. What women have to realize in this case is that a panicky response isn’t going to help anything.

The first thing we can do is be rationale. Think about it. How many pictures have already been taken of you in your wedding dress? Chances are a lot, even if the ceremony hasn’t taken place yet. The same goes for the reception. Everyone has likely had plenty of time to see just how gorgeous you look.

What you would really need to do is take stock of just how severe the situation was. The best first step we feel a bride with a stain on her dress should take would be looking to her bridesmaids.  Ask them just how much they notice the stain on your dress.

Next would be to decide if a stain is so bad that it absolutely requires some method of treatment immediately. If so we’ve included different methods and suggestions to follow below and for different types of stains.

Understand that no matter how careful you are with emergency treatment of stains, there’s always going to be the risk of spreading or making a stain more noticeable. You absolutely have to be very patient if treating a stain on a wedding dress yourself.

Stains have caused more trouble for women and wrecked more wedding dresses than virtually anything else. You would think that rips or tears would be the main thing women had to worry about with their dress. Nope, it’s stains hands down. With the right methods to attack these issues though you don’t have to stress out too much.

Take a look below at the different types of stains a wedding dress might suffer and then examine the treatment method for them.

• Stains that are oil-based

You can get oil based stains from the food you eat at a wedding or through actual use of baby oil. In any case getting these types of stains out doesn’t have to be difficult. All you need is some good quality dish soap along with some white vinegar. You would simply wet a white cloth or q-tip with these solutions and attempt to eliminate as much of a stain as was possible.

• Stains from grass

Grass stains can happen more often when someone is having an outdoor wedding on a lawn. This is due to the bottom hem of a dress dragging against the grass. In these instances professional cleaning would probably be best, but it’s not your only option.

All you have to do is use warm water and some washing detergent mixed together. Blot these onto the area where the stains are and allow it to sit for little over or little less than twenty minutes. Once it’s clear that the solution has sunken into the dress now you would want to rinse it off.

• Juice stains and alcohol stains

Your first priority with these stains has to be to attack them as fast as possible by getting them wet. Cold water is best. All you need is some good dish soap to make things work. Bleach can also help, but some women might not like the idea of using bleach on their wedding dress.

• Any stains that come from dirt or clay

Use a dry towel to rub away residue in a gentle manner first. After this you’ll want to use a damp piece of cloth, but be sure to not rub stains with it. The damp cloth would be used in order to very gently brush away as much dirt or clay as you could.

• Stains from sweating too much or even blood

Rubbing these types of stains is going to make them virtually impossible to remove without using a professional cleaner. What you want to do is blend together some water, ammonia, peroxide as well as some dish soap. Through this concoction you can eliminate these types of types or what we would call protein based stains. Just make sure to be extra gentle.

• Stains that come from lipstick

Lipstick stains are one of the more common types of stains women get on their wedding dresses. These types of stains are tough to remove. In many cases prevention is probably the best course of action to take here. Wait until you’ve put your dress on before applying your lipstick. And be sure to protect from the possibility of lipstick stains from other women.

• Stains from makeup

Believe it or not it isn’t as tough to get makeup stains out as it is lipstick. In the majority of cases you’ll be able to dab these types of stains with water on a white cloth  or even make use of some good makeup remover in order to take care of the stain.

Understand that no matter how careful you try to be on your wedding day, accidents are going to happen at times. For instance, despite your best attempts to be careful you can simply have someone spill something on you. Stains can also occur due to constant contact with people who don’t mean any harm.

Think of the parade of women who will be constantly touching you throughout your big day. We’re talking hugs, kisses, a lot of contact. It doesn’t take much for lipstick, oil stains from another woman’s hair or even makeup to accidentally get onto your wedding dress.

So the name of the game wouldn’t be not just protecting your dress, but making sure you’re extra cautious when other people come into contact with you. That’s why we recommend a “no touching” policy on your big day until after the ceremony. As cruel as this might sound, we believe most people at your wedding will be understanding of this.

Proper protection from staining issues on the big day will lead to an easier time with dress preservation afterwards.