How To Choose A Dry Cleaner For Your Wedding Gown
While this article is to help you make an informed decision on how to choose who
will care for one of the most important and most expensive articles of clothing you will ever own, the basics of choosing a good dry cleaner are the same for your regular clothes also. If the dry cleaner you choose for wedding gown does not live up to the guidelines laid out in the next paragraph, then they should not be looking after your wedding gown.
When looking at any dry cleaner you should consider many things. Do your friends, neighbors or family recommend them? Is the call office clean and up to date? Does the counter person know what they are doing? If you ask questions, can they answer them? Do you they ask you questions, such as, Are there any stains, where are they and what are they? Is there any special handling we need to do with this piece of clothing? Here are some questions to ask Do you belong to any trade associations? (Most dry cleaners that do will have a sign or sticker in the call office.) Are your employees up to date on the latest dry cleaning methods and do you send them to educational classes? Do you test garments before processing? Is there a Certified Dry Cleaner working on the clothing here?
When you are specifically looking for a cleaner for your wedding dress, you need to know if the cleaner will be processing the gown in house, or sending it out to a wholesaler for processing. There are good and bad points to both methods of cleaning the dress. Some questions to ask if the cleaner is sending it out are:
Why do you send out the gowns instead of doing them yourself?
Where do you send my dress?
Does this place do dresses as if they were on an assembly line? Do they take the time to care for every dress that comes in as if it was special?
How do you assure that they clean the correctly? Do you inspect the gowns when they come back to you?
Do they seal the gown in the box? If so, do they vacuum seal (hermetically seal), use nitrogen or otherwise replace the air in the box?
If the answer is - the gowns come directly to you and they do not inspect them; that the gowns are hermetically sealed; or that they use something like nitrogen in the box, head to another cleaner.
When looking at a dry cleaner that does the gowns in-house, check to see if they specialize in Wedding Gowns and other expensive or exotic clothing. Does the counter person ask questions like, Did champagne or another colorless liquid spill on the gown? If so, where? (The sugars in pop and champagne can oxidize over time, so a brown spot will show up several years later). Are they members of the DLI (Dry Cleaners & Launderers Institute) or another trade association? Have they taken the wedding gown class that the DLI offers twice a year? Even better, does the dry cleaner or manager come out to inspect your gown? Have any of your friends or family used this dry cleaner? Do they allow you to inspect the gown before packaging? Some cleaners actually encourage this, they are proud of their work!
What sort of packaging do they offer, if any? Most dry cleaners that do wedding gowns put it in a preservation box or bag for you. You need to know that the box or bag is made from archival materials, some of them are just pretty looking. There are many more gowns boxed than put into garment bags, but being able to hang the gown, when space is tight makes bagging a popular choice. There are several problems with garment bags the dress has to be prepared properly so that it is not damaged by its own weight. There should be hanging tapes sewn into the waistline, so that the shoulders are not stressed and the bodice stretched. How is the train held up? Is the hanger made from archival materials? Or is it padded with foam, or a metal, plastic or wooden hanger with no padding? The bag, is it made of archival materials? That would be muslin or Tyvek in most cases. Is unbuffered, acid-free tissue used to stuff the gown, giving it some shape and extra support? If any of these questions comes back with a no, keep looking for a dry cleaner than is careful with the gown after cleaning as when cleaning.
Boxing is the most popular method for storing a clean wedding gown. The box should be made of archival materials, such as an unbuffered, acid-free corrugated cardboard box that is large enough to hold the gown comfortably. Plastic boxes, even archival ones, will melt in a fire and irretrievably damage the gown. Corrugated boxes can withstand higher temperatures and keep the gown safe, even though it may still need cleaning after the fire. Does the dry cleaner seal the box? How? With tape around the edges or completely shrink-wrap it? Shrink wrapping is just a marketing ploy it does nothing to preserve the gown, and may even harm it. Are the accessories that you want to keep with the gown kept separately in an archival bag? These can be the metallic buttons from the gown itself or gloves & garter that you provide. Do they use boxes or bags that have been tested to be archival and acid-free from independent labs?
The cleaner should be happy to explain how he packs the gowns he works on and why he chooses the method and materials he uses. He should also explain how to keep the gown protected after you get it home.
Choosing a dry cleaner for your gown is not difficult. Start with dry cleaners you would want to clean your normal clothes, and then look to see if they specialize in wedding gowns and are willing to answer your questions. If they are proud of their work, they will do a good job for you.
by: Nancy L. Jones
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