I opened the guest room door this morning to drop off folded towels and got hit in the face with a smell I have not encountered since my mother took a coat to the Sav-On Cleaners on Burnet Road in 1994. Connor’s rented tuxedo, zipped into a translucent plastic garment bag from a Men’s Wearhouse outside Charlotte, is hanging on the closet door. The wedding is Saturday. It is Tuesday. We are in trouble.
The smell is perc. Tetrachloroethylene. I know it is perc because I made my sister-in-law Mara come over and confirm, and Mara sells Norwex and has done two trainings on solvent residue, which makes her basically a chemist for the purposes of this household. She unzipped the bag, took one breath through her nose, and said the word “oh” in the specific cadence she uses when she finds mold behind a baseboard.
Here is what the Facebook group “Wedding Industrial Complex: What’s In the Garment Bag” has been trying to warn brides about for three Junes running. Chain tuxedo rentals run every garment they own through the same perc loop all wedding season. The machine does not get cleaned between cycles the way the machine at a real cleaner does. The perc concentrates. By mid-June it is essentially a brine. A tux that comes out of that machine is not clean — it is seasoned.
Then they steam-press it at 9 a.m. and zip it into a plastic bag at 11 a.m. while it is still warm. The plastic does not breathe. The perc has nowhere to go but back into the wool. By the time the garment bag arrives in my guest room two states away, the tuxedo is, in chemistry terms, a marinade.
Connor is going to be wearing this tuxedo for fourteen hours on Saturday. Ceremony, photos at the koi pond, reception, after-party at the brewery, then the Sunday brunch in the same shirt because he packed wrong. Fourteen hours of perc against his lymph nodes. His armpits. His groin. I will not say more about his groin because he is my husband’s brother but you understand the geography.
So here is what I have done. The tuxedo is now hanging from the lower branch of the cherry tree in full sun. I have misted the wool with Earth Mama unscented linen water at three intervals. I have placed a clean cotton sock filled with baking soda inside each pant leg and one inside the jacket. I have set out a bowl of white vinegar on the patio table directly underneath, which my mother always said “pulls” — I do not have a Facebook group source for this one, just my mother, who is a source.
The bride does not know. The bride cannot know. The bride is named Hayden, she is lovely, she paid $2,400 for a venue with a koi pond and a wood-fired pizza station, and her capacity for one (1) more piece of information this week is zero. Mara and I have agreed this stays between us and the cherry tree.
I texted the other groomsman mothers this morning. Tyler’s tux is reportedly still in his Subaru in a Target parking lot in Hendersonville. Brent’s is in a sealed Marriott garment closet, which is somehow worse. Devin’s mom said his is “at the house” and would not elaborate, which means it is on the kitchen chair next to the dog. None of them are airing out. I am, at present, the only line of defense for an entire wedding party.
If you are the mother of a groomsman this June, I am asking you, with love, to go to wherever that garment bag is currently hanging, unzip it six inches, and put your nose inside. If it smells like a 1994 Sav-On, you have until Saturday. Cherry tree, baking soda sock, vinegar bowl. Mist every four hours. Do not tell the bride.
Connor and Hayden are getting married themselves next June. He told me last night, very pleased with himself, that he plans to wear his grandfather’s tuxedo from 1971, which has been in a cedar chest in Beaufort since the Carter administration. I smiled and said that sounds wonderful. We will be discussing the mothballs in October.