Cleaning your wedding dress

​Wedding dresses are generally white, ivory, or champagne. These light colors show even the smallest amount of dirt. This can be a really big problem because the majority of people go outside to get their wedding pictures done. Most of the time these pictures are taken before the big day. Your dress gets dragged through the dirt, grass, and everything else that is on the ground where you take your pictures. More than likely you got home and realized it could use some TLC before your wedding day. There are many methods on the internet that explain how to clean your wedding dress at home. I will quickly outline a few of those for you here in this post:

The spot clean
If your dress didn't get extremely dirty, then you may not have to go through the whole hassle of soaking it. You may be able to get away with a tide to go stick or something similar. Just try spot cleaning it first. If that does not work, then you can go all in and try one of the following methods. Be careful on satin that you do not use water, as it can leave a ring where you tried to touch it up.  

In the tub:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6boW_62jvyY

The video link attached above is one of a woman whose dress got filthy during her wedding. When she called around to dry cleaners, she was put off by the price and the use of chemicals. Her process is as follows. 

1. Fill up tub and add detergent
2. Soak dress. Let it soak for several hours. This will let the water soak in and help dissolve the dirt that is really deep. It is important not to rush this stage. Let it soak and go do something else in the meantime. 
3. Drain and Repeat. I would do this as many times as necessary. 
4. Hang dry. This is important. While it is still super wet, hang it somewhere (not in direct sunlight) and let it dry out. Doing so while it is still soaked will help it to dry straighter with less wrinkles. 

This method is very time consuming but can be very effective. 

The washing machine:

This method is by far the easiest. The directions are as follows:

1. Check the label of your dress. If it is 100% polyester or polysatin then this method will be okay. If your dress is made of finer materials, such as silk, you will want to choose an alternative.
2. Put your washing machine on the "delicate" cycle with an extra rinse. This works best in front load, tumble washers. The top load washers with an agitator seem to not work as well. 
3. Use Woolite detergent, it seems to do a better job for the delicate work. 
4. Turn your dress inside out, put it in, and start the cycle. 
5. As soon as it is finished, take it out and hang dry it (not in direct sunlight.)

My suggestions:

If it were me and I had just spent between $600-$3,000 on a wedding dress, I wouldn't do anything to risk hurting it. You likely received some money from your reception. Use it to go have a professional clean your dress. 

If you plan on keeping your dress for a long time, then get it professionally preserved. It costs a little more than the cleaning alone, but packages it in a way that it can be presented beautifully. We offer this in store at Affordable Bridal Boutique in Provo for $225.
The best part is that the price includes the cleaning. 

Good luck.

Comment below any suggestions you might have!