4 Tips on How to Travel with Wedding Dresses
Whether the location is an exotic destination like Aruba or the chapel in one’s hometown, traveling with wedding dresses isn’t something people do every day. Even though the process isn’t rocket science, it requires intentionality. When you’ve secured the best wedding dress designers to create the perfect look, you do need to plan and prepare. Your wedding dress is precious cargo that you don’t want to lose or damage in the process. As you prepare for your big day, consider the following tips in order to know how to effectively travel with your wedding dress.
1. For Wedding Dresses, Invest in a High-Quality Travel Garment Bag
When you’re preparing to travel with an item as valuable as a wedding dress, it’s so important to protect it. For starters, wedding dresses deserve their own high-quality travel garment bags. Never pack your wedding dress with your other items such as high heels, casual clothes or any travel-sized toiletries. Your high heels might snag the dress. Your casual clothes might have a zipper or a button that could rub against and damage the fabric on your dress. Travel-sized toiletries can still open up and spill.
In addition to putting your dress in its own garment bag, make sure the garment bag is waterproof. When you’re traveling from place to place, there’s no true guarantee regarding what the elements might provide. If you’re traveling through rain, sleet or even a lot of snow, you’ll want to make sure that your dress isn’t impacted by the elements en route. While lots of bridal boutiques provide amazing garment bags for you to use in-house, sometimes it’s good to take it a step further by investing in your own. Since your dress is the star of your wedding day, it’s important to go the extra mile to make sure it’s fully protected while you’re traveling.
2. Pack a Hand-Held Steamer
A handheld steamer is an amazing investment because it allows you to remove any wrinkles without the potential stain of a burn. When you’re using steam to eliminate the wrinkles and make the dress look polished, you won’t have to worry about the potential burn of a clothing iron. There are plenty of handheld steamers that are both inexpensive and easy to pack in your suitcase or your carry-on bags. If you don’t want to use a handheld steamer, simply check the hotel that you’re traveling to. They might carry handheld steamers for guests to use. If they don’t, check the stock of the local stores in that location. It’s possible to run to a local home goods store to pick one up.
When you’re looking for the right steamer, read the online reviews. Sometimes, steamers are inexpensive because they’re ineffective. Make sure the steamer doesn’t randomly spurt out hot water. You don’t want to soak your dress with hot water or burn your own flesh. By getting the right recommendations, you’ll secure a handheld steamer you can use for your dress and other items in your closet after the wedding.
Designer wedding dresses come in a variety of fabrics. Depending on the fabric that’s used for the dress, you might be able to steam the dress in the shower of the hotel you’re staying in. Close the door to the bathroom. Secure any cracks or crevices where steam could escape. Once you have a secure, closed environment, turn on the hot water of the shower. As you hang the dress in an area of the room, make sure you don’t get the dress wet by hanging it on the side of the shower curtain rod. However, allow the steam to fill the room. When the steam feels the room, this will naturally allow the dress to experience the same effect that a handheld steamer would provide.
3. Treat the Dress as a Carry-On Item
Whether you’re getting to your wedding via plane or train, never check your wedding dress as luggage. Always keep it within arm’s reach. This means that you’ll need to store it as a carry-on item. Talk to the personnel of the airline you’re traveling with. Learn about their policies regarding wedding attire. Don’t simply assume that you can just bring it on the plane without any other issues.
Some airlines require you to pay a nominal fee. Other airlines might require you to label it a certain way. If you tell some airlines about your need for storage space for your wedding dress, they might have a closet that is specifically designed for people to carry on items such as coats as well as wedding dresses. The key is to communicate your needs to the airline you’re planning on traveling with.
If the airline doesn’t have the capacity or the policies in place, find a different airline. The last thing you want to do is separate yourself from your dress and run the very high risk that your luggage doesn’t arrive. You can’t risk being without a wedding dress on your wedding day.
Another aspect to consider is your priority to the airline. Depending on the status of the ticket you’ve purchased, you might get better treatment and better accommodations. Knowing this, consider upgrading to a first-class ticket. When you upgrade to first class, there’s a certain level of special treatment you’ll naturally receive. Something as important as a wedding dress will be handled differently for a first-class passenger. Plus, it’s your wedding. Enjoy the luxury of a first-class ticket as you travel with such special cargo for your big day.
4. Talk to the Professionals
You’re not the first bride to travel with a wedding dress. There are so many who have traveled with designer wedding dresses before. A great example is the classic destination wedding as they’re very popular for many couples. Knowing this, the professionals at the bridal stores in Columbus will have tons of knowledge on what you can do in order to safely protect and travel with your dress. Solicit their advice when you are purchasing your dress. Talk to them about stories, tips and recommendations they might have. Whatever they’ve recommended to you, seriously take that into consideration because they have experience with different customers traveling with dresses.
It’s also a great idea to consider online reviews when you’re purchasing items such as your travel garment bag. Look to see the reviews of brides who traveled with their dresses before. They’ll let you know whether their dresses were damaged, safely carried and any other issues they might have had. Take that advice to heart when you’re planning the preparation portion of your travel experience.
Once you incorporate all of these tips and put the practical steps in place, it’ll be much easier to relax and enjoy your travel experience. When you’re going into your wedding weekend, you don’t want to feel stressed out. By talking to the airlines, effectively planning ahead and making sure your dress is protected in the right garment bag, you’ll ensure that your dress arrives when you arrive for your big day.
Photo ID: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-beautiful-bride-against-window-indoors-173170916
