Wedding Shoes - Less Is Enough

Let's start with this: I can count on one hand the number of times I have spent more than $150 on a pair of shoes.  (My favorite, for the record, was a pair of 3" gray flannel round-toe Stuart Weitzman pumps that I bought the autumn of my sophomore year in college and wore until they literally fell apart when I was a senior.)  And then there's this: I'm nearly 5'11" and Jon, when he stands up straight, is 6' even. Add to those two facts my strong feelings about the Wedding Industrial Complex and you've got a recipe for a meltdown about the shoes that will take me down the aisle.

When you think of bridal footwear, do you imagine something relatively classic?  Like these, for instance...

top row: Badgley Mischka
middle row: Kate Spade
bottom row: Stuart Weitzman

They've each got a little something special - some bling here, a bow there, maybe a little lace overlay - and they're elegant without being staid.  If I had a few hundred dollars and a little more of a height difference to play with, I'd snap up almost any of these without blinking.  But if you said yes to my question, you haven't been reading your wedding blogs.  The Pinterestification of weddings means that elegant isn't enough for any part of your big day, even the part that's primarily going to be hidden under your dress.  Every little element of your wedding has to be creatively and uniquely you, and classic doesn't cut it.

As the Slate article I linked to above says, "Today's marriage ceremony is [an opportunity for] buying things that have been personalized to express one's taste and, so the industry tells us, the essence of who one is."  I think that many those shoes up there are gorgeous, especially the relatively minimal ones on the top left and on the right side in the middle; I also live in ballet flats, the simpler the better.  But there's such hype surrounding weddings that simple doesn't seem to be an option - the reaction when I tell people what I'm looking for in my wedding shoes is almost always along the lines of "but this is your opportunity to really let your individuality shine!"

Look, let me say that if amazing shoes are a trop budget priority and you do love glitz and glam on your feet, then please do go to town.  If your wedding album won't be complete without a photo like this (or this, or this, or this...), then I promise I will coo over your gorgeous and expensive shoes and I really will mean all the adjectives I throw at them.  But that's just not for me and, in a perverse twist of the craze to mark every aspect of your wedding, that seems to not be okay because more is always better and less is never enough.  That doesn't seem to respect my freedom to let my taste shine through in our wedding, even if the shine is more of a shimmer than a blinding glitter, does it?  I want to wear what makes me comfortable - and what allows me to spend money on the cheese table!

Okay, indignation over, and I feel much better for having shouted a bit - thanks for indulging me, dear readers!  Now let me show you a few of the pairs that I'm thinking of wearing for my wedding.  Tarah might get a shot or two of them, but honestly they probably won't be seen much; the hem of my dress is going to reach the floor and I'll probably kick them off after only a few minutes of dancing.  So here are my guidelines: the shoes I buy can't cost more than $75, they have to be flats, and bonus points if they're rewearable.  (I don't want pure white as they won't quite match my dress.)  Plus they have to be available in size 11, which isn't a given with every brand!  How about one of these?  Which would you pick?

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