My fabulous friend Donna has been involved with Belcourt Theater for years. One of Nashville’s historic and most loved movie venues, they host their annual benefit on Oscar Night.
The night is one I’ve heard Donna talk about for years, and one of the main reasons that I flew out to Nashville last weekend.
When you have an opportunity to have a night on the red carpet, you want to shine and look gorgeous and Donna introduced me to a new service that did just that.
Rent the Runway offers designer rental attire for special occasions – – including both dresses and the perfect accessories! Their collection spans from lovely cocktail dresses to full evening gowns. Designers include Badgely Mischka, David Meister, Escada, and many more.
Choosing a Dress
Shopping online was so fun! You set up a profile, filter by dress size, occasion, neckline, etc and then you have a chance to see all of the many dresses that are available. They offer a wide variety of dress sizes and lengths, which makes it easy to find the perfect frock!
For a full length evening gown, prices range from about $70-$270 from what I could see. And, there were a lot of perks associated with renting from RTR:
– Because it was my first rental, I saved $25! This is a promotion they offer for first time users! Love it!
– With your first gown selection, they’ll send you the size you choose, as well as a second size of the same gown. This is a GREAT option. What if you’re favorite gown didn’t fit??
– With my order I was able to also order a second design for just $30.
– RTR stylists also offer accessories for every dress on their site – – One stop shopping!
After digging through the site for a few hours, sharing pics with friends and via Instagram, I settled on these two dresses.
Read the Reviews! They Are So Helpful!
What really helped me make my decision was reading the customer reviews. You can see pictures of the gowns on woman who have actually rented them and hear what they thought about the dress!
– “Dress was really tight in the bust. Order a size up if you’re over a 36B.”
– “I’m 5’6” and the dress length was perfect with a 3 inch heel.”
– “Zipper was very hard to close. Make sure you have help getting dressed.”
– “I felt stunning and comfortable in this dress”
I was really reading these reviews to understand how true to size they were, to see pictures of other women who were about my size (models aren’t a good comparison to how something will look on my hips) and to understand how long these bad boys were going to be.
How the Rental Works
You can choose a rental period of 4 or 8 days. I chose 4, since I didn’t really need it much longer than that. I actually had the dress shipped to Jaede’s house, and it arrived just in time, beautifully packed.
When I got to Jaede’s house, we held a quick fashion show, and I am pleased to report that both dresses fit beautifully! Note: The pics below were taken in Jaede’s closet, and I wasn’t the best photog, as you can see…
If you have a fabulous event coming up (or even are planning to be a bride soon!), I definitely recommend this service. It was simple to order and the dresses were gorgeous.
To return the dresses, I simply tossed them into the pre-paid UPS envelopes RTR provided and shipped them back. They take care of the cleaning and the shipping costs! So easy!
I’ll tell you more about the event and which dress I picked on Friday…
Note: I was not compensated in any way by Rent the Runway. I just really liked their service and thought it would be something great to share here on NTTC. The post above does, however, include referral links.
Have you ever used Rent the Runway?