When you’re planning the budget for your wedding, you’ll need to include everything from flowers to thank-you notes– but if you’re like many brides, wedding dress dry cleaning might slip your mind. It really shouldn’t. Depending on the style and price point of your dress, hiring the experts to do your cleaning and wedding dress preservation can make all the difference.
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Dress Style And Price Point
Choosing the perfect gown is about finding the style that makes you feel beautiful on your special day, but it can also be a more practical exercise. The general rule of thumb is: the more expensive and delicate the fabric that the gown is made of, and the more elaborate the decorations, the more detailed and expensive the cleaning will be. If you don’t want to spend a lot on cleaning and preserving your dress, consider choosing a simpler style or a more forgiving fabric.
What can make the process more difficult and costly? Fabrics like genuine silk and satin are more delicate than polyester or linen. Beading, sequins, and lace are typically fragile and need special handling, as is embroidery. If you’ve got your heart set on a very detailed gown, set aside more money for cleaning than if you prefer a simple cotton, linen, or polyester dress.
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What Sort Of Cleaning Do You Want Done?
While many dry cleaners will claim to know how to clean a wedding dress, they may or may not actually be experts. We preserve many gowns a year, but if you’re considering going with some other dry cleaning company be sure to ask them how many wedding dresses they actually handle. If it’s less than 100 gowns per year, it’s really best to move on to a cleaner that has more experience. You should also consider, when you’re making your budget, whether you want the gown preserved or just cleaned. Most brides prefer to have the gown preserved, as this keeps the fabric intact the longest. Compared to the cost of the gown, wedding dress cleaning can be surprisingly reasonable.
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What Kind Of Wedding Are You Going To Have?
While it might seem like there’s not much that can happen to get your gown dirty at your wedding, you’d be surprised at the amount of grime that a train can pick up. Still, it’s worthwhile to think about the type of wedding that you have planned when you’re deciding whether to budget for professional cleaning or try to do it yourself. Outdoor weddings tend to cause more stains, but just because you’re getting married indoors doesn’t mean that your dress will remain stain-free. Everything from makeup to cake to champagne can leave stains on the gown, some of them very difficult to remove without the correct chemicals and equipment.
Whether it’s grass stains or dirt from outdoor weddings or cake and red wine from the reception, it’s safe to assume that your gown will need a good cleaning. After the wedding, you won’t need one more headache. We recommend budgeting for professional wedding dress cleaning and preservation along with purchase of the gown itself, to protect your investment. This may just be one line item in your wedding budget that won’t give you sticker shock.
Sources:
Wedding Dress Preservation – www.theknot.com
From DIY To Professional – www.weddinggownpreservationkit.com