wedclean.org

Readers,

After seeing so many beautiful wedding gowns, day after day, Joanna and Bonnie suggested that we shared some of them with our readers.

Joanna started taking pictures and accumulated hundreds before I could get our blog set up. So I’ve asked them to cool their heals and limit the pictures to a Dress of the Day. The gown owner will be notified that her dress is on permanent display.

If we had our druthers, we’d keep them all :0)

Jim Parham, President

WedClean

Invisible stains on wedding dresses become very visible after a few years of storage. You’ve seen those rusty yellow stains on old clothing or old linens that got put in the back of a closet. They were invisible years ago. Those invisible stains on wedding dresses normally come from Champaign, cola spray or other drinks containing sugar.

If they are not detected and removed during preservation you will see them after storing the dress for several years which will take special restoration processing to remove them.

The black light makes those invisible stains very visible, that’s why we use the black light inspection before and after the CareLoom preservation process. They are easy to remove at that stage.

If you have looked into having your wedding gown preserved, you have probably already come across some of the methods of storage in common use. Plastic bags, vacuum-packing, acid-free boxes…

All of these methods have been around for years and tested by many preservation specialists. After seeing results of long-term storage in all of these methods, and more, the safest for your dress is the acid-free box.

Be on the look out because often a manufacture will make a box acid-free by “buffering” it so that it is now alkaline. This is just simply not good enough for your gown, which can be damaged in an alkaline environment as well as an acidic. Not only should your preservation box be acid-free the box must also be pH-neutral.

The Aqua Clean System is a unique WetCleaning system that uses sophisticated microprocessor technology to precisely control every phase of the WetCleaning and drying process to ensure beautiful results. Special biodegradable chemicals, designed specifically for WetCleaning and spotting, clean and enhance garments while also eliminating shrinkage and wrinkling. 
 
Research in Europe and the U.S. confirms that water by itself does not harm fine textiles; excessive heat, rapid changes in temperature, excessive mechanical action, and over drying do. 
 
Unlike dry-cleaning machines that use solvent, Aqua Clean machines use water and unregulated chemicals. It produces no hazardous waste, and is environmentally, friendly! This is only a portion of the CareLoom Preservation process exclusively used by WedClean.

What makes some sequins, beading and other ornamentations disappear from formal dresses and wedding dresses during cleaning?

Harsh cleaning methods and using the incorrect cleaning agents sometimes will dissolve ornamentation’s or dissolve the glues attaching those beautiful beads and sequins to the gown. We, at WedClean, test those ornamentation’s and the adhesives before cleaning.

Guessing or inexperience can end up in tragedies.

Care labels in wedding dresses can be very confusing.  We just recently received a wedding gown to preserve that had two care labels. One of the care labels instructed to wash the dress and the other care label, found in the skirt area, read dry clean only.

If this wedding dress was washed it would have been ruined because it was silk. The two different care labels could have been an excuse for mishandling the dress by inexperienced wedding dress cleaners. 

The discrepancy was quickly observed by our staff and the gown was drycleaned and came out beautifully.

Just imagine real peacock feathers on your wedding gown…Well here at WedClean we actually received one!  This was the most unique gown that I have ever encountered.   

A simply beautiful silk gown and the back looked like a peacock had spread its beautiful feathers all over!  

The cleaning and preservation process had to be well thought out in order to keep the feathers in perfect condition.  The end result was quite interesting because we had to take the back panels from the seams of the dress and cleaned it just like that.   

Despite the bride’s fears of her unique wedding gown being ruined, she was absolutely pleased!

As you may have heard, red wines are not exactly easy to remove from white garments.

We normally remove 9 out of 10 red wine stains by using our technicians’ experience, along with various oxygen bleaches.

That 1 of the 10 will lighten to a faint pink but not completely disappear.  My suggestion, serve only white wines at the wedding receptions not the reds. Kidding!

In ancient times the juice of the red grape was used as a fabric dye. I think I’ll leave it at that.

Picture this, your silk gown being dragged, trampled, and worn through Bourbon Street for your wedding photo shoot. End result, well, way beyond filthy!

This bride sent her gown to us never thinking her dress could ever return back to her with any resemblance of its original condition.

But much to her surprise, and ours, it was returned to her just like new.