Wedding shoes - oh, the drama!

June 2 - 18 days to go!

The search for the perfect pair of shoes has turned out to be more difficult and time-consuming than the search for a dress. I found the dress on my first day of hunting, in the second store I visited. I tried on probably seven dresses in the first store, three or four in the second. And that was it. We bought the dress that day.

The shoes, on the other hand, have been a bit trickier. Since James and I are just about the same height, I wanted to wear flats or very low-heeled shoes. I refused to wear dyeables, which to me are just clunky, ugly, bland shoes. A visit with my mom to a shoe store that focused mainly on dyeables (my mother did not tell me this before taking me there, I was horrified when we went in) only confirmed my suspicion. Example:

I would rather go barefoot than wear something that hideous. That clunky boxy heel! The uninspired design! The stupid white satin that just screams "I am a dyeable, please dye me to match your lime green prom dress"! No no no. We were in that store for all of 15 minutes - most of which was spent with my mom and the store lady showing me shoes and me saying no, followed by them making me look through catalogues and me continuing to say no. I was being open-minded, and I was genuinely hoping they had something I could use, but they just didn't. So we left.

I continued searching for shoes every chance I got, any time we were in a mall I'd want to check out Macy's and JCPenney, and time we were out shopping and saw a shoe store, I'd want to stop in. I'm sure James is thoroughly sick of wandering through shoe stores or shoe departments by now. It was immensely frustrating sifting through a sea of shoes and not finding anything suitable - the trend is for high, high heels or ugly gladiator-style flats, neither of which would work. Unfortunately, it seems that we're past the season of cute ballerina flats, which was what I was hoping to find.

In Target, though we seemed to strike gold. Or at least, something vaguely resembling gold. Something gold-like that could work if we found nothing else. Yes.

Okay, they're $12 flip flops, but they're pink and sparkly and flat! But they're flip flops and I don't want to come clopping down the aisle. Plus, even though they're quirky and cute, they're really not the Very Special Wedding Shoe I had in mind. We bought them, and they're a good Plan B, and I may slip them on for the reception, but... I wanted something nice to get married in.

So the hunt continued. And I dragged James up and down the aisles of Famous Footwear and DSW and whatever other shoe store I could find. And he was very loving and helpful about it too, going off to search so that we could cover more ground quickly. Then one day we found these:

And obviously, given the picture, we bought them. And I thought these were it. They had a low heel so they were dressier than a flat, and they were pink! I really wanted to find pink shoes, since I thought that'd be the most fun, but finding the right kind of pink shoes was damn near impossible. But they are basically glorified flip flops, so the clopping down the aisle issue is still there. Plus, I sent the picture to my mom and she disapproved, saying they looked too red and I should keep looking.

So the hunt went on. Because really, my mom was right. Those shoes, while very cute and fun, aren't really the Very Special Wedding Shoes I was hoping for.

And then, this past weekend, while on our way to PetCo to get some bedding for Winston, we saw an Off Broadway shoe store in the same strip mall. James offered to go in, so in we went, and we spent way too much time wandering around looking for shoes, but eventually, we found them. The Very Special Wedding Shoes!!

Okay, they have heels, but they're not too bad. I wish they were a little bit shorter, but even as they are I'm only a teensy bit taller than James. We decided it was close enough, and I'm hoping that his tuxedo shoes will have a higher heel than regular shoes. But anyway, these are beauties! They feel much more formal and wedding-y than the other two, and the material is amazing. It's gauzy silver with a sparkly silver design on it. They're very sparkly, but not overwhelmingly so since the sparkles are not completely covering the shoe. Unfortunately that picture doesn't really do them justice. I love that they're semi-see-through so you can see my feet within the shoes, with the sparkles delicately dancing on top. They really make me feel like I'm wearing Cinderella's glass slippers. I've been wearing them around work to break them in, and every once in a while I'll peek at them and tip my feet this way and that to watch them sparkle, and all I want to do is squeal in delight. And I've been getting lots of compliments from ladies at work, which just reinforces my love of these shoes.

The one problem may be that I got fitted for my gown in the flip flops, so the gown will be hemmed for me basically being barefoot. That would mean that if I wear these fabulous shoes, the gown would be coming up higher off the floor than it should. I'm just hoping that it looks okay... we'll see!

The long-delayed bridal shower post

June 1st - and the countdown begins!

We're getting married later this month. It's crazy that it's already (almost) here - with all the planning and dreaming and prepping, it sort of felt like it was never actually going to happen, but we'd be planning it forever.

Life is insane, of course. The new jobs turned out to be hectic and stressful and chaotic and needing more than 40 hours a week, unfortunately. We're in what's called a rolling wave, which means we're working on planning out the next 6 months of the schedule and everyone's going crazy about it. The due date to the customer is June 5 so hopefully things will settle down soon (although this week promises to be nuts!). And we just moved to our new location in Andover (all this time we'd been working in Billerica while our permanent offices were being finished) so that adds a whole new layer of craziness into the mix. Plus some people are still in Billerica, so meetings are happening in both locations, which are at least 20 minutes apart. I have one meeting in Billerica from 3 - 4 and one in Andover from 4 - 5 today, so we'll see how that works.

Our weekends have been consumed with wedding-related activities, but still in seems like we have more in the "to do" pile than we have in the "accomplished" pile. It's frustrating and exhausting. But still, we've managed to get a lot done.

But to the purpose of this post: the bridal shower! Two weekends ago (already?!), we drove down to NJ which was at noon on Satuday. Since we had to go to work on Friday, we didn't want to make the 6-ish hour trip all that night. We stopped in Westport, CT for the night to visit my cousin and his wife, which very conveniently split our trip up into two three-hour chunks. It was really nice to visit them, since I hadn't seen them in a couple of years (!!) and since they won't be able to make it to the wedding, it was great for them to meet James. I'm so glad we were able to stop by.

Me and my cousin Dick

On Saturday we got up early and took off for NJ, arriving just as the shower was starting. It was a wonderful party. I wish my sister could have been there, though! There was tons of food and so many of my favorite people I didn't know who to hug first. It was amazing to see everyone, I wish the party could have been longer because I miss them all so much and some of them I hadn't seen in over a year. Eventually they sat me down on this throne my mother rigged up, made me wear a "bride to be" sash a la Miss America, and had me open a mountain of presents. It was really overwhelming to be at the center of attention like that, and to be opening presents in front of everyone, which is something I haven't done since childhood birthday parties. I was also overwhelmed by everyone's generosity, it was so wonderful to get such nice gifts!

All too soon, the party ended, and one by one people hugged me and left. James and my dad went to the tux lady to finalize the tuxes and get my dad measured, and my mom and I left for my gown fitting. The lady, however, wasn't there. No phone calls, no messages, just not there. Annoying. And frustrating. We rescheduled for the next day, which meant that James and I couldn't leave for Massachusetts until after that was finished. We'd been wanting to get out early, so that we wouldn't be getting home too late, but the lady had to go to church first, so that scuttled that idea. Anyway, eventually I got fitted and James and I drove back to Massachusetts. We had been in NJ for just over 24 hours. It was crazy, but well worth it.