what to wear to a wedding

how I spent my one-buy April

Last week, I took a quick solo trip (48 hours) to Austin to attend a wedding taking place outside during the eclipse! I’d never been to Austin, or Texas, before, and while I pulled together the rest of my suitcase pretty easily, the exact wedding outfit was proving hard to settle on. I started responsibly, by shopping my closet.

My first option was this Diane von Furstenberg jumpsuit from the RealReal in firmly pre-pandemic times. It’s a dependable wedding outfit, and it’s served me well for at least three weddings, but it felt a little wintry, and despite having a tailor add a hook and eye closure across the chest, it still doesn’t stay secured for an entire evening.

me in 2019 at the only wedding I’ve ever been to in NYC (points if you can guess that bathroom)

Next up was this Loeffler Randall number that I wore to my own rehearsal dinner and haven’t had occasion to break out since. This is a little too “belle of the ball,” lol—there were two grooms, so I wouldn’t have to worry about upstaging the bride, but it seemed a bit intense for a daytime, outdoors wedding.

Next up: the Ode dress in “limeade” from Mr. Larkin—a full-price purchase during those deep-pocketed days of lockdown and stimulus checks. This would be perfect. It’s definitely a statement piece, but it’s linen, which brings it firmly into daytime territory. However, when we begin to consider footwear (the only item I cannot feasibly rent), we have an issue.

My most comfortable dress shoes are my Maryam Nassir Zadeh Sophie sandals. I first bought them in red when I had no business buying Maryam Nassir Zadeh shoes, even on final sale, from the Steven Alan on Atlantic (RIP) in 2016 before a wedding.

I loved them so much that I bought another pair on Poshmark a couple years ago, in black patent leather. These are basically my only wedding shoes—I refuse to subject my bunions to anything else. So whatever I wear should ideally go with one of those pairs.

Unfortunately, green + red together = Christmas, and green + black can create somewhat of a Slytherin Effect. The Mr. Larkin dress was out.

So! I decided to rent a dress. I did that in February for the wedding I went to in Peru, and would have rented that same one again, but I was feeling drawn toward a warm pattern/color palette to match the solar eclipse vibes, lol. Below—the evolution of my thought process on Rent the Runway:

I rented this Cara Cara dress for Peru, loved it for that event, but this time I wanted something warm-toned. The other similarly patterned Cara Cara dress looked promising, but I noticed that the sleeves were different, and sleeves like that are often constricting—would have been a gamble. I wore a rented Rhode dress to a wedding in January, so I decided to look at all the other Rhode dresses to see if there was something in a similar silhouette but different fabric. The Rhode Noa dress looked perfect, but it was unavailable in the size I needed. So I kept scrolling and ended up on the pink maxi dress on the far right. I figured it was a safe bet, as it was loose and tiered, and I thought the color would look good with red shoes.

The dress arrived, and reader, when I tell you this dress looked bad, it looked bad. I should have trusted the old adage, “If it doesn’t look good on the model, it’s not going to look good on you.” I’m still debating if it is even useful to share a photo of how it fit me. No idea how it has such a high rating!!!

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE

So, crash and burn on that dress. Foolishly, I’d also rented a bag to go with it, planning a joyful confluence of colors despite my nagging feeling that I should stick with the brick red leather one I’d already rented (I should have reread my own article on wedding guest bags.) The bag was also disappointing, if not in the colossal way that the dress was (smaller and stiffer than I’d envisioned.)

The “shiny new object” bag I was tempted by and regretted renting (Staud), and the bag I returned too early (Mansur Gavriel)

I’ve used up my two shipments for the month at this point, so I start to experience mild panic. If I don’t find a dress to go with that bag, I will have wasted two precious rental slots. I consider renting a dress just for the event, which I have done before, but with tax and fees, it seems like it will cost me about $65. At that price, I feel like I’d rather just buy something, but I’m trying to do a one-item April, and do I really want a wedding guest dress to be my item? **(I’ve already technically broken this, but as it was a gift card, I am allowing it. More on that later.) Do I have a choice at this point?

I visit Buffalo Exchange while running some errands. It’s slim pickings—lots of synthetic fabric, and everything is more expensive than it should be. I find a pink dress, in a similar silhouette as one I’ve considered renting before. It’s a silhouette that I know I’m more comfortable in (i.e. not a halter top.) The Pepto-Bismol pink just doesn’t feel like me, but in black… I actually kind of like it. It won’t show sweat, I can get a little dirty, and I think I’ve got a black bag buried in my closet somewhere that I can use for the day. I’ll wear the black patent leather sandals, repaint my nails, and go for a casual funereal goth vibe. For $30 and a little piece of my soul, it becomes mine.

The final look, before heading out to the shuttle bus:

GUYS. I didn’t even get a picture. After all that!!! And I also didn’t even end up wearing the black MNZ shoes—after rereading the invitation and looking up the venue one more time, I wore the more casual sandals I’d brought along for everyday wear, these chunky rubber Melissa sandals that are much more durable (and can be hosed off if exposed to mud and dirt.)

SO. What will I do differently next time?

Having an Event to dress up for seems to occasionally induce temporary insanity in me… why did I ignore what I know about my body and my preferences? I should have taken a bit more time to scroll through everything that was available, not just my favorites, and I also should have tried out a couple dresses rather than betting on one and a purse to go with it.

If I’d started thinking about it earlier, I could have also borrowed something from a friend—at the last minute, I had my friend Lily bring over some options the night before, but we have different preferences in silhouette and fabric and what looks stunning on her doesn’t always work on me. But I could have asked a few other people for options as well if I’d had more time.

And finally—it may be worth setting an alert for those MNZ sandals in my size on Poshmark, eBay, TRR, etc. If I can find one more color—something lighter, maybe a blue or a purple, I should be *covered* no matter what dress I want to wear!

Do you have a go-to wedding guest outfit? What do you struggle with when dressing for events?