My First Rent the Runway Experience

Yes, I’m really late to the Rent the Runway party.

Even though I spend most of my life in yoga pants these days, I’ve always loved dressing up. While I have a pretty good arsenal of cute dresses to wear to weddings at this rate, I wasn’t feeling too excited about the black dress I chose for my cousin’s wedding in Colorado last weekend. Sure it looked cute and would suffice… but why wear a black dress in the middle of summer? I wanted to wear something a bit more fun and colorful for the wedding.

Instead of purchasing yet another cocktail dress that I would possibly only wear once, I decided to finally try Rent the Runway.

[image via]

Rent the Runway is a pretty brilliant service that lets you rent designer dresses for special occasions. You have the option of either ordering online through their huge selection of dresses, or you can go to the store and try on a few dresses in person.

Being the shoppaholic that I am, I wanted it play “Say Yes to the Dress” wedding guest style and actually go to the Rent the Runway store in Flatiron for an extra $20. I think it ended up being worth it for peace of mind.

Before my appointment I filled out a style profile detailing my size, what I’m comfortable wearing and the kind of stuff I like. I noted how I wanted to wear something fun, summer-y and colorful for the cocktail attire wedding and linked to a few RTR dresses I really liked.

When I arrived at the Rent the Runway store there was already a dressing room set up for me with a few choices in my size. Before heading to the room I walked around the store for a bit picking out other dresses that caught my eye. I was a little bit disappointed in the overall selection, there weren’t a ton of dresses compared to when you’re shopping for a dress at Macy’s. I truthfully thought there would be a lot more options in store considering their huge online inventory.

I ended up really liking the fit of two of the dresses. Sad dressing room selfies ahead.

I fell in love with the yellow buttercup dress by ERIN erin fetherston. The fit was perfect, it matched my silver heels (aka the only heels I can comfortably walk in) I didn’t have to wear a strapless bra, and at $60 for the weekend it was much cheaper than buying something new at Macy’s. Win! I usually wouldn’t gravitate towards the color yellow– pale people problems over here, but after trying it on I was really impressed with how it looked and decided why not wear yellow for one night.

Because I was leaving New York Friday morning, RTR guaranteed it would be ready to go by Thursday evening. Sure enough I got an email on Wednesday AND they offered to UberRUSH it over to my apartment so I didn’t have to pick it up. I was honestly floored when I found out I didn’t have to go to the store. Made my life SO much easier to just have it magically waiting for me when I got home Wednesday night.

Not only did the dress magically arrive, it also came in a perfect carrying case making it easy to stuff in my luggage for the trip. Eased my concerns about flying cross country with a designer dress…

Also came with a hanger not pictured 🙂

On Saturday night I styled the dress with simple pearl earrings from my grandma, a gold bracelet and my go-to comfy heels I’ve been wearing since prom.

Turns out yellow was also a popular color for the evening seeing as one of my cousins-in-law (is that a phrase?) was also wearing a yellow dress.

Returning the dress Monday was super easy. All I had to do was zip up the carrying case, put an already printed UPS sticker on the front and bring the bag to a UPS drop off station. I live in the middle of Manhattan so that was pretty easy to find. I already got confirmation that the dress arrived today.

All in all my experience with Rent the Runway was fantastic from start to finish, I didn’t have any issues minus my disappoint with the dress selection at the store. What impressed me most was the fact that the dress was still in great condition, I didn’t feel like I was wearing someone else’s reject dress or a neglected dress from a thrift store.

Side note they have pretty detailed reviews on the website as well.

The reason I’ve waited so long to try RTR is for fear that I would order the wrong size and be shit out of luck on the day of the special occasion. It’s usually not hard for me to find a dress that fits however I am pretty short at 5’2″ and picky about fit. Online a ton of people have already uploaded pictures of them wearing the actual dress with details about their height, weight, build and what size they wore. Obviously nothing beats trying the dress on in person, but it’s a lot of info to give about a dress.

I’m already excited to pick out another dress for a wedding I have later this summer 🙂

 

Are you a huge Rent the Runway fan? Do you order online or shop in person?