04 December 2008

Travelling with your wedding dress

I toyed with the idea of getting my dress in Italy where my wedding would take place. Then the practicalities hit me.

I would be required to fly back there up to 3 times before the wedding for fittings, etc; not very convenient considering my evenings and weekends had now been eaten up with making decisions on flowers, listening to reems of bad Italian wedding bands on Myspace and having sleepless nights thinking about the seating arrangements.

In the end I purchased my wedding dress in the UK. Just when I sat down relieved and was about to reward myself with a generous glass of Baileys my mother struck fear in me: “How ever are you going to travel with the dress? It will get destroyed entirely in the hold of a plane”. I laughed nervously when she suggested that I buy the dress a seat on the flight: “Do not be ridiculous mother, a seat for a dress!”

For those of you who have not had the pleasure of encountering this particular wedding scenario let me enlighten you. Airlines do sell seats for wedding dresses. Ryanair included! You buy the seat and name the ‘passenger’, Miss Dress. Your dress takes its position beside you and your future husband and off you trot- or, um, fly to your destination.

As we passed through the airport I was stopped on numerous occasions. “So your off to get married then?” was the usual query. “Yes, I am” It must has been the 9ft long bag that sat out from the middle that gave it away. It was not easy navigating security screenings and rowdy gate cues. I had taken the precaution of purchasing a wedding dress travel bag from eBay. Basically you hang the dress inside on a fitted hanger, zip it up then it folds in half and you carry it on your shoulder with a strap.

With military precision we boarded the plane and took our positions near the front with the dress in the middle seat. Thus avoiding spillages from the service cart and as my overprotective husband explained, someone nicking it. The wedding nerves were surely setting in.

We arrived in Italy unscathed but the train of the dress felt a little crushed. The air hostess insisted that the bottom of the dress be pushed under the seat for take off and landing. I stroked the dress in sympathy and we drove at high speed to the village laundry. The dress was removed from its travel bag and hung on high to be steamed.

If you are travelling with your dress, it is highly likely that it will need steamed, regardless of how careful you have been in transportation. As a precaution look for a local and reputable laundry before you arrive.

There is a feeling of being on your own when you have travelled to a different place to be married so it is good to at least have a professional cast an eye over the dress to make sure nothing sinister has taken place during the trip.


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