Every wedding day produces at least one small crisis involving fabric, and it is almost never the dress itself that causes it. Our Chelsea Bridal Studio has seen enough wedding days to know exactly which few items make the difference between a five-minute fix and a visible problem in the photographs.

A small stain-removing pen, the kind sold for exactly this purpose, is worth having in any bag on the day – used sparingly, dabbed rather than rubbed, and only ever on a stain that is still fresh. Double-sided fashion tape solves more last-minute problems than almost anything else: a gaping neckline, a strap that will not stay put, a hem that has come slightly loose.

Safety pins, in at least two sizes, cover everything the tape cannot. A small sewing kit with white and ivory thread handles the rest, for the button that goes at the worst possible moment or the hook that will not quite close.

Beyond the kit itself, the single most useful habit is knowing where the dress is at every point in the day – who is holding it, where it is set down, and keeping it away from red wine, grass and car doors for as long as possible before the ceremony. Most of the marks we see afterwards happened in exactly those ordinary, avoidable moments.

If something does happen on the day that a kit cannot fix, our advice is the same every time: do not try to treat it yourself beyond blotting. Bring the dress to us as soon as possible afterwards, and tell us what happened and roughly when – that detail alone makes a real difference to how cleanly a mark comes out.