Last year, I attended 5 weddings in 6 months, and that’s not counting the engagement parties, bridal showers, the baby showers, and this one black tie gala for work. All of these events meant I couldn’t wear my usual uniform of faded skinny jeans and a T-shirt; I had to actually dress up and look nice. A lot of my friends run in the same friend group, so my go-to navy cocktail dress would only work for a few of these events. But I also couldn’t afford to run out and buy a new dress at Nordstrom for every occasion, no matter how high my credit limit. And even if I did, I knew I’d feel terrible shelling out a lot to buy an expensive dress I’d only wear once.
My best friend told me about Rent The Runway, an online service that lets you rent dresses for weddings, special occasions, and even everyday work clothes. Their site gives women access to an endless “closet in the cloud” of clothing and accessories. By renting your outfits instead of buying, you access thousands of dollars of clothing at a fraction of the retail price. Rent The Runway was the perfect solution to finding the right dress for all my upcoming events without wasting time or money on a new look, or wearing the same dress over and over.
On Rent The Runway’s site, you can browse thousands of dresses (it’s like a dream closet), and filter by style or occasion – black tie, cocktail, casual, gowns, weekend, work, etc. When it came to the weddings, I needed dresses for both ends of the dress code spectrum: my good friend was getting married at a luxury hotel with mandatory black tie attire and my cousin was having an outdoor wedding with rustic farm vibes. To see what was available, I entered the date of the event and browsed an amazing selection of dresses in my size. This made everything so easy, because I could plan ahead and didn’t have to worry about what I was going to wear to each event.
The hard part was narrowing down my options – there were a lot of dresses I loved and they even had designer brands like Badgley Mischka, Vera Wang, and Nicole Miller. I’d never normally be able to splurge on dresses like these that cost upwards of $1000, but by renting it would only cost me around $100 for the weekend.
You can filter by body type and size, so you can see photos of what real people in your size look like in the dress –not just how it looks on a model. I found the reviews to be so helpful, as women shared tips about the length, how heavy the fabric was, and even if you would need to wear some Spanx or a strapless bra. And even better, Rent The Runway includes an extra size in your order, at no extra cost, so you don’t have to worry about the dress not fitting two days before the event. Once the dress arrives, you have 4 days to wear it and return it, with free shipping. The best part though is that you send it back as is; Rent The Runway is responsible for the dry cleaning – giving you one less thing to worry about or spend your money on!
Rent The Runway has made dress shopping for all my events easy and fun – I get to wear a new dress to each occasion and I don’t end up with a closet full of dresses I only wore once. I save time and money and look good doing it! Now when my friends compliment me on my dress and ask me where I bought it, I have a secret to share — I rented it!
Update: The folks at Rent the Runway are extending a special offer to our readers. Follow this link to get 25% off your first order!
