While you surely spent the majority of your evening trying to ensure nothing happens to your wedding gown, sometimes stains happen. Wedding dresses are commonly damaged with a stain during the course of the ceremony, picture sessions and receptions.
While staining your very expensive gown can seem like a huge deal, there is a relatively easy way to deal with it. In most cases, wedding dress cleaning can get the majority of stains out of the gown.
What Stains Are Removed When My Wedding Dress is Cleaned?
Wedding dress cleaning is intended to keep your gorgeous gown looking as pristine as it did the moment you walked down the aisle, and part of that process is removing any stains that have found their way onto the gown. Wedding dress cleaning can typically remove food stains from most gowns, which is a common type of stain. Water soluble items, such as wine or soda, are more difficult, but can still be removed. Wedding dress cleaning services can also typically removed blood stains, grass and dirt stains, and stains from sweating during the evening.
While the majority of these stains can be successfully removed, there is no guarantee that all stains can be completely removed. The wedding dress cleaning process is a delicate one, as the fabrics typically used on such dresses is particularly delicate. Because of this, certain stains cannot be removed without compromising the dress and its integrity. The likelihood of stain removal depends on the type of stain, the length of time the stain has been left untreated, and the type of fabric that has been used in the dress’ construction.
What Stains Can Not Be Removed Through Wedding Dress Cleaning?
What stains cannot be removed during the wedding dress cleaning process depends entirely on the stain and the dress. Certain delicate fabrics, such as silk, satin and tulle, cannot be wet cleaned, as it compromises that dress, and will leave stains and water marks. Because of this, special techniques must be employed to remove the stain. About 95% of the time, all stains can be removed, however, there are certain stains that are particularly stubborn, and are not removable without degrading the delicate fabric.
Whether or not a stain can be removed will depend almost entirely on the fabric of your dress, the type of stain, and the length of time the stain has had to set. To have the best chance of having all stains removed from your gown, it is important to have your dress professionally cleaned as soon as possible after the reception. It is also important to speak directly with those handling the cleaning about your expectations. A cleaner will be able to tell you whether wedding dress cleaning is likely to get the stains out of your dress, or if the stains have already set into the fabric, making the process much more difficult.
What Should I Do If My Dress is Stained?
If you notice that your dress is stained during the event, or shortly after, do not attempt to spot clean it with liquid of any sort. This can lead to a bigger, more difficult to treat stain. For the best results, make sure to have your wedding dress cleaned no later than 3 months after your big day. The sooner you send your dress in, the less time the stain will have to set. If the stain has not yet set into the fabric, it should be relatively easy to remove through professional stain cleaning processes.
Photo credit: Jin.Dongjun / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
