If the idea of buying a wedding dress to wear once before locking it away at the back of your wardrobe feels a little… well, sad, have you ever thought about renting out your wedding dress? Plus, with the growing costs associated with weddings and the quadruple-figure price tags associated with most wedding dresses, buying a designer gown just isn’t a realistic option for many brides. Unless they choose to rent, that is.
Here, Cosmopolitan UK sat down with two brides – Amber, who got married in April 2022 and then rented her dress out to Lorraine, to find out all about their shared experience.
Amber’s wedding
Eddie and I met in our hometown of Scarborough, almost ten years ago now whilst we were at sixth-form college. We both ended up attending the University of Leeds and the rest is history. We did things in a slightly back-to-front way. We knew marriage was on the cards in the not-too-distant future and we wanted to take advantage of the last available bookings at a discounted price so we booked all the big stuff (venue, caterers, etc) before we were actually engaged. The last thing was the proposal.
Eddie took me to Edinburgh for the weekend. While we were exploring Edinburgh Castle, we found a secluded bench and it was there he asked me to marry him with a dainty, diamond wreath ring from N+A New York. We went for a celebratory meal and ate way too much, we had to practically roll back to our Airbnb.
True to form, I also couldn’t resist a deal when it came to wedding dress shopping. I’d tried on a few, but spotted a local bridal boutique was having an end-of-season sale while scrolling on Instagram one day. I saw the Pronovias Modena dress discounted to £400 (from its retail price of £1,800) and, despite never having tried it on, I purchased it without a second thought.
When I went to collect my dress, I had to try on some of the other gowns in the boutique and I fell in love with a second Pronovias design, the Antiope dress. I never went into wedding planning thinking of having two dresses but, after extensively searching eBay, I came across the second dress a month later in my size and for another bargain price.
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Eddie and I are religious and as we were getting married in his childhood church, I wanted a more conservative dress for the ceremony that I would feel comfortable wearing for such an important and sacred part of our day. On the morning of the wedding, I stopped en route to the ceremony for chocolate ice cream on the beach with my maid of honour. Visiting mine and Eddie’s go-to ice cream spot felt fitting, even while wearing my wedding dress. I then changed into my second dress for the reception, it was still timeless in style but the silhouette hugged me in all the right places. I didn’t take it off until we arrived at our hotel for the night, driving there in my white Fiat 500 with ribbons tied around the door handles.
The idea of only getting one day’s wear out of any dress, but especially one as beautiful as a wedding dress, seemed so wasteful to me – and I wasn’t even wearing it for the full day because I had a second dress to change into. I wanted to keep one of my dresses for the memories, but it seemed excessive to keep two. After the wedding, I decided to donate one of my dresses to the Wedding Wishing Well Foundation, a charity that organises and funds weddings for terminally ill people in the UK. With my second dress, I decided to rent it out via By Rotation. If it could be a part of someone else’s special day and I could make a bit of extra money out of it, then it seemed like a no-brainer!
Lending my dress to Lorraine to wear for her own big day felt so special, especially as she was so thrilled to be able to wear a Pronovias dress for a fraction of the price of buying it new. It fit her perfectly, so I think it was meant to be… for both of us! She was kind enough to bring me a slice of her wedding cake when she dropped the dress back off after her wedding. It’s unique to have this shared experience but I’m hopeful it will become more common.
Rent Amber’s wedding dress
Lorraine’s wedding
I met my partner Jason in South Africa in 2011 through a mutual friend. After first being friends, we then started dating. I'm African and in my culture a proposal isn’t about getting down on one knee, but rather asking to send delegates to your family to initiate certain cultural wedding rites of passage. As such, I didn’t get an engagement ring. Instead, my partner chose my wedding ring for me – a chocolate diamond ring on a single yellow gold band.
When it came to wedding dress shopping, I always knew I wanted to rent a dress as I consider myself to have the kind of taste that does not always match well with my pocket. I’d looked in shops and online but couldn’t find what I was looking for in my budget. Instead, I signed up to By Rotation and started browsing through options.
When I came across Amber’s dress, I knew it was perfect for me. An off-the-shoulder neckline, lace detail, excellent quality – given the designer label – and just my size. Wearing it on my wedding day felt like it was meant to be. My wedding jewellery consisted of pearl earrings and I wore white wedding shoes with a bow at the back of each ankle strap.
I was glad I had my dream dress as it ended up raining heavily on the day of my wedding and we got stuck in traffic on the way to the registry office. I had a knot in my stomach the whole way there, worried that the registrar would cancel after calling to find out how late we were going to be. Luckily, they waited for us!
Despite not having a single review on the site as I had just joined, Amber very kindly accepted my request to rent the dress. I sent the dress back with a slice of our wedding cake for Amber, it was the least I could do to thank her.
Alexandria Dale is the Digital Fashion Writer at Cosmopolitan UK. Covering everything from the celebrity style moments worth knowing about to the latest fashion news, there’s nothing she loves more than finding a high street dupe of a must-have designer item. As well as discovering new brands, she’s passionate about sustainable fashion and establishing the trends that are actually worth investing in. Having worked in fashion journalism for six years, she has experience at both digital and print publications including Glamour and Ok!
