How the Dress Made It to the Destination Wedding

The dress left Savannah on a Wednesday in a garment bag, not in the thin plastic sleeve the bridal shop sent it home in. That sounds like a small sentence until you have stood in an airport with a satin A-line over your shoulder and wondered what happens if the zipper gives out.

I am Colette Marchand. I planned one wedding, my daughter Elise's, at a small inn outside Santa Fe this past June. Seventy-two guests, nine round tables of eight, no paid planner. I kept the binder, I packed the day-of bag, and in April I bought the Sleeping Lamb garment bag to replace the shop's plastic sleeve. That is the short version. The longer version is why I stopped trusting a free bag with a dress that had taken months to choose.

The Sleeping Lamb bag is 72 inches long with a 15-inch gusset. It is made of breathable non-woven fabric, it closes with a zipper, and it has a clear pouch on the outside for a label. That is the whole product. It is not a hard case and it does not pretend to be one. What it does is give a long dress room to lie folded without being crushed into a square.

I packed on Tuesday night, the day before we flew. I rolled a bath towel into a cylinder, laid the dress face down, and folded it once over the towel. Then I zipped the Sleeping Lamb bag shut, ready to carry on. The towel was not part of the product. It was my way of keeping the bodice from taking a hard crease at the fold.

On Wednesday we flew Savannah to Albuquerque with one connection in Dallas, then drove about an hour to Santa Fe. The bag went in the overhead bin on both legs. I did not hand it to a gate agent and I did not check it. At the inn I hung it in the closet from Wednesday to Saturday. That is the entire travel history: one round trip, one dress, no drama.

It arrived with one soft fold line. The steam from a hot shower in the closed bathroom relaxed it by Friday.

I want to be clear about the fold line. The dress did not come out of the bag looking as if it had never been folded. It came out with one soft line across the skirt, maybe two inches wide. Thursday night I hung it in the bathroom, closed the door, and ran the shower hot for about twenty minutes. By Friday morning the line had relaxed. By Friday it was gone. That is a real result, not a magic one.

Apart from the steam on Thursday night, the bag stayed in the closet at the inn until Saturday morning. I took it down, unzipped it, and let the dress hang while we got ready. The closet was not a steamy room. The bathroom was. That is why the shower trick worked. If the inn had a steamer I would have used it. It did not, and I was not going to iron satin.

The only wardrobe problem on the day was not the dress. Tess, one of Elise's bridesmaids, had her hem come down about 40 minutes before the ceremony. I had a small sewing kit in the day-of bag, and I used it. The dress was fine. I mention it because people assume the garment bag is only about wrinkles. It is also about not having to solve a second problem while you are already solving the first.

I looked at a dress box at the bridal shop. It was rigid and handsome and I had nowhere to put it in a rental car. The Sleeping Lamb bag is fabric. It rode across the back seat of the rental and it now holds the dress in my hall closet. If you are driving to your wedding and you have room for a box, a box is a fine choice. If you are flying, the bag is the more practical answer.

One more thing about the bag itself. It is 24 inches wide and 72 inches tall when it is laid out, so it takes up real space on a bed. That is the tradeoff. A smaller bag would be easier to pack and would put more folds in the dress. I would rather give the dress the room. If you are short on space in the car, know that the bag is long. It is not a small item.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were at my kitchen table, I would tell you to buy the bag in April, not the week of the wedding. I would tell you to pack it once at home, before the real trip, so you learn how your dress folds and how much room the towel takes. I would tell you to carry it on and to lay it flat if the bin has space. I would tell you not to expect a hard case and not to expect the bag to do the work of a steamer. It is a good bag for the job it was made for. It is not a guarantee. And I would tell you the thing I told Elise: the dress is one part of the day. The people are the rest.