My First Rent the Runway Experience

I recently participated in my first Rent the Runway experience!

Looking for a fun pink dress to wear to We Love WAC Day, an event that my office hosts for admitted students, I turned to Rent the Runway when I decided that I wanted something new, but didn’t want to BUY something new.

What does that mean? I got to RENT this lovely Kate Spade dress. I chose it online, it came directly to my house, I wore it, and used a prepaid shipping label to send it right back to RTR. Easy!

Back it up: What’s Rent the Runway?

It’s a company with online rentals for dresses and accessories (they have a few brick and mortar locations, too). You can browse for items based on color, occasion type, size, designers, and more.

Once you choose an ensemble, you choose your best size (using the measurements provided) and can even order a free back-up size if you’re not quite sure of the size. Then, you choose a time-frame of 4-8 days. The longer you have the item, the higher the cost. It’s best to have something delivered within 1-2 days of your event.

I chose the 4-day option, but got to keep it one extra day because my 4th day ended on a Sunday. When your return date is a Sunday or a holiday, you send it back by noon the following day.

I chose a Kate Spade dress, and ordered two sizes. My order arrived in this zipped garment bag.

The bag opens and can easily hang on a hook or in your closet. There’s information on how to send it back in one of the pockets, as well as a return address label, making it easy to send your items back to RTR.

One of the two dresses I ordered (one was a back-up size) fit like a glove, and I accessorized it with some of my fun silver costume jewelry. I love fun necklaces!

This dress was perfect for my event.

Even better, I loved simply taking it off, putting it back in the plastic, and zipping it up to send back to RTR. Done!

As a tribute to their customer service — we had an unexpected snow storm in our area, which prevented normal operation of UPS. I called RTR to explain, and they assured me I could return the dress the next day by noon. It was easy to get in touch with them and they took action very quickly on my request.

I will definitely use Rent the Runway in the future for events!

Full disclosure: the Rent the Runway links listed in this post are referral links.