Before launching in to this absolute corker of a post from Paris, I just want to thank everyone who read/shared/said nice things about my last excerpt from The Frank Diaries. There was me thinking the general reaction would be Jeez, cheer up love, you’ve just had a baby, and instead I got an outpouring of love and understanding and sisterhood and, most surprisingly, thanks. It wasn’t necessarily a difficult admission for me to share- let’s face it, I’m an open book when it comes to personal thoughts and feelings- but I totally get now that it’s a subject that other new mums may not find so easy to talk about. So I am truly humbled that my ramblings touched so many people.
Anyway, on to more exciting things… WEDDING SHOES. This week’s post from Paris might be my favorite so far or hers. Enjoy!
If I thought that I could breathe a big sigh of relief after I had bought my wedding dress and reclaim my brain for thoughts other than wedding fashion, I was wrong. In the very same appointment that I bought my dress I was given the homework that any bride-to-be wants… shoes. Oh and underwear, but that is far more boring.
So this post is all about shoes. I would not normally consider myself a “shoe girl”. I have so few pairs of work shoes that it hasn’t been unknown for me to be dashing off to a last minute event, realising that all my suitable pairs are locked in the office and I am faced with the prospect of UGGS and a pencil skirt (great look, obviously).
Which brings me on to my next important point, being comfortable. If I’m not doing my daily commute in my pixie ankle boots (yep, still with the pencil skirt) I am usually chilling in some kind of converse type shoe or better yet, slippers. I don’t know how many pairs of slippers Joe has thrown away over the years, he is amazed that I have any left.
So with these being my shoe criteria it was clear to me that I didn’t want a massively high heel. As much as I grappled with the idea of adding some much needed length to my ridiculously short legs, I knew that I would be limping down the aisle, which wouldn’t be ideal. So I started ticking the “mid-heel” box.
I wanted something unusual but while the other brides-to-be I know head towards an overload of glitter I knew that wouldn’t be possible for me and my already super glitzy dress. Last year I went through a phase of rather loving the bright pointy court shoes that seemed to be floating around. I bought a pale yellow suede pair and wore them to a wedding, where they were immediately ruined traipsing through a muddy field. I probably should have known better with it being a December wedding and no amount of dry brushing or wet mopping could get them clean. One good thing did come from the ruined shoes though, I decided that I wanted suede shoes for my wedding and preferably in yellow or blue.
So that was the plan and I went on a Pinterest rampage collecting images of shoes from Kate Spade, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and Vivienne Westwood such as these:
They didn’t all match the brief but each pair had something a bit different. However, try finding anything on Pinterest in the real world! I was having serious shoe difficulties.
And my difficulties were about to get a million times worse, specifically, mum-level worse. She was not happy about my shoe dreams and was not afraid to make this known.
Now I do have to feel a little sorry for my poor Ma as she hasn’t really had much luck with my wedding. It has felt like I have broken her heart at every turn, whether it be not getting married in a church, not having a strapless princess dress and let us not even breathe about the time when I said I wanted to stay with Joe the night before (I believe Sama did this and I haven’t ruled it out just yet, sorry mum). The guest list couldn’t accommodate everybody my mom wanted and remember when I nearly bought my dress in champagne? Luckily for me I am about as eazy breezy about it as I can be but my mum’s instant dislike of less-than-bridal shoes did start a bit of a shoe wobble. And that’s when I fell in love with these beauties:
Charlotte Olympia, Desiree. The pom-poms. THE POM-POMS! My heart sank at the £550 price tag as I tentatively asked Joe whilst hiding behind my computer screen:
“Joe… what’s my wedding shoe budget?” (This was a loaded question, the budget is my area of expertise.)
“I don’t know. What was you thinking?”
“Well, what do you think is expensive?”
“Hmm, what do you think is expensive?”
I was getting nowhere fast so I showed him the shoes. He liked them, I was bolstered. I told him the price and his response was a big fat laugh but I took it on the chin knowing that, having found them in the “bridal” section, my mom would absolutely love them and Joe was no match for her.
My mom hated them. And I think that is when I properly had that wedding realisation that all the wedding mags bang on about – you can’t please everybody, so just please yourself.
So when a few weeks later my bridesmaid, Sophie, whatsapped me these lovely blue suede numbers I knew that I had to have them and I didn’t care what anyone else thought.
My blue suede beauties!
The Tallulah shoes from Hobbs were a complete steal at £65 after being 50% off and they are blue, suede, a bit pointy and sooo comfy. I keep strutting around the flat in them and practicing my aisle walk, which will involve absolutely zero limping. And do you want to know the best bit? My mom loves them. The irony.
So brides-to-be tell me all about your wedding shoe woes? Are we thinking traditional or something a bit different?
Paris x
