Preserving Your Wedding Gown
The Dry Cleaning Process
Take the dress to the dry cleaners as soon as possible after your wedding:
- Body oil, perspiration, deodorant, hairspray, perfumes, body lotions and cosmetics can leave permanent brown stains your dress if not treated swiftly.
- Caramelised sugar stains from cake icing, white wine, champagne or soft drinks can cause discoloration.
- Even if stains are not immediately visible to the naked eye, untreated they oxidize and can be very difficult or even impossible to remove over time.
Always wrap your flowers to prevent flower juice leaking onto your gown! Flower juice permanently stains the gown with invisible stains that become permanent brown marks after dry cleaning process.
Professionally preserving your gown
Dry cleaning cleans obvious dirt and stains, but it does not protect against the long term yellowing, fabric deterioration, or invisible stains that can surface over time. We therefore recommend a process to preserve your gown:
- During the preservation process, each gown is closely examined under special lighting and all stains are hand treated with gentle yet effective chemicals. Of course special care is taken of any beads, sown on or glued decorations and ornaments of the dress.
- The most enduring professional preservation method is garment vacuuming or the Barrier Atmospheric Vacuum which replaces the oxygen in the bag with nitrogen prior to sealing it, the procedure similar to one in food industry. This approach to garment storage completely eliminates the possibility of harmful garment oxidation.
- During vacuuming process, the garment in placed in a protective bag: transparent from one side and foiled from another which protects clothes from exposure to heat and light. If the bag is not punctured or damaged, the process ensures that the dress will be preserved for many years to come.
- Alternatively a specialist can preserve your wedding gown using acid free tissue and acid free cotton container (these are available in all Jeeves Valet shops). Special care is given to all the beads, buttons sown on or glued decorations and ornaments of the dress.
- Shoes or jewellery are cleaned and wrapped separately; they can emit harmful fumes that can ruin the gown. A professional dry cleaning and preservation procedure will permanently remove both visible and invisible stains, as well as protect the fabric from deterioration, so your gown will look just as beautiful as the day you first tried it on.
