Fashion Friday Rent the Runway | San Jose Boudoir Photography

 I wanted to share a recent discovery of mine that’s not totally new, but new to me and totally fabulous.

My mother-in-law told me about Rent the Runway (RTR) a few years ago when I was looking for a wedding dress. They didn’t really have what I was looking for then, but I must have signed up somewhere with my email, because a couple weeks ago I got a promotional email from them (the first one ever) offering $25 off my first rental.

If you’re not familiar with RTR, it’s a shop that rents designer dresses for a fraction of the purchase price. You simply pick your style, order it, and it’s shipped to you via UPS. You can even order a second size for free. After your event you return your dress in a prepaid envelope and RTR takes care of the cleaning for you. You even get to keep the garment bag it’s originally shipped in (I don’t know why, but this was a big plus for me. I could see these coming in handy later.)

First of all, I have to commend them for good email marketing. If they’d been spamming me weekly since I signed up, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. I loved that they didn’t contact me for more than a year, and when they did, it was with a deal. Kudos.

RTR must have known is was a good time to contact me because my wedding anniversary was this past weekend, my birthday is this coming weekend, and my husband’s birthday is at the end of the month.

After browsing the site a bit, I decided to take them up on the $25 off my first rental and got the “Some Like it Hot” dress by Milly to wear for my anniversary dinner. The price tag on this rental was a little high (to me at least), but with the $25 deal, I decided to go for it.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous about falling in love with the dress and wanting to buy it (it retails for more than $400), but I actually didn’t. The dress was fabulous, but not something I’d wear enough to warrant even thinking about buying it, and the fit wasn’t perfect.

After my first rental I was totally hooked. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long for my  next one, because I ordered the “Guilty as Charged” dress by BCBCMAXAZRIA  for a casual birthday party earlier this week. This dress was super cute a comfy, though a little hot. I had no idea it was going to be 90 degrees this week!

This dress I actually might have considered buying because I think it’d be great with tights and boots in the winter, and I would actually get a lot of wear out of it. However, I checked the BCBGMAXAZRIA site and couldn’t find it anywhere, which leads me to believe it’s an older style. Oh well.

What I really love about Rent the Runway is that there are reviews from real people, and many post photos of themselves in the dresses. This way you get an idea of what the dress would look like on someone your size, and not just the model. You can actually enter your body type, age, height, weight, bra size, etc. into the site and then search for photos of other users with similar proportions. It’s pretty neat! Most of the dresses I’ve looked at go up to size 12 or so, and they also have a plus-size page too.

On top of having fabulous dresses, Rent the Runway also has a huge collection of accessories, which would be perfect for a boudoir session. Rental prices range from $5 all the way up to $400. Since most of us don’t typically purchase jewelry to match our favorite lingerie, this is a perfect opportunity to borrow something that would. They have a lot of pretty fancy stuff, so it would be great for weddings too!

Have you tried Rent the Runway? If so, let us know what you think in the comments. I know I’m hooked!

Nicole