Linens, rent vs. Buy?

lfreeman24

Hi ladies,

I'm wondering if anyone looked into the cost of buying linens versus renting them? I just got a quote from the rental agency and was a little shocked how high things are.

Thanks!

calindi

I originally thought buying, because the price is usually about the same as renting but you get the option to re-sell after to recoup some of the costs.  However, someone made the point to me that if you don't rent them, you have to make sure they're all the same color (different color batches can have slightly different tones), iron them before the wedding, and set them up.  Then you have to dry clean them after before selling, and the dry cleaning can cost nearly as much as the linens, thus eliminating the savings.

We're having our caterer supply linens.  Is that not an option for you? 

JodiAriel

We bought ours.  20 clover green organza overlays and I think we paid about ~$6/ea and our caterer wanted $21/ea for organza overlays.  The caterering company ironed them for us for $75 and I now have them sitting in my garage and have not yet been able to sell them!

You're not having a clover wedding are you???

pokey730

I was originally planning on renting, but I found pretty decent prices on efavormart.com. I feel it will end up being cheaper as I am going to do either overlays or table runners as well. Also, unless they get ridiculously stained, I'm pretty sure you could get away with throwing them in the the washing machine, and letting whoever buy them iron them themselves. Good luck!

lfreeman24

Thank you ladies for the input.  Calindi  those are great points, it really may not be worth it unless the price difference is signifigant to not have to iron them all!

JodiAriel-if only it was clover you'd have solved all my problems!

Our caterer is arranging all the rentals for us, but we have to pay the rental company seperately. I guess I just hadn't realized JUST how much rentals can cost!

I can't believe how inexpensive efavormart.com is!

Thanks again!