Weddingbee Blog

Now that my shoe obsession has been properly established, you can fully appreciate the story of how I found the perfect wedding shoes that weren’t.

Upon getting engaged last March, the shoe search began. Around the same time I also began looking for wedding inspiration pictures, and looked at everything tagged “purple” on TheKnot.com. This was how I first found these gorgeous purple and champagne beaded heels. The end all, be all shoes. The. Must. Have. Most perfect shoes ever!

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I was head over heels (pun intended!) in love with these shoes. And let me tell you, I spent months and months trying to find them. I set up Google and eBay alerts, using any and all search terms I could think of. I scoured the internet looking everywhere. I think I spent probably 100 hours altogether trying to find these or similar shoes, without any luck.

By the end of last summer, I’d all about given up hope. I didn’t think I would ever find the perfect, magical shoes, and started looking for other options. I even went so far as to try to imitate the shoes, like in this Photoshop mock up I did on random purple shoes I found on Zappos:

I bought some inexpensive purple heels and some lace appliques, intending to try to duplicate the shoes (with the flower on the toe removed), but later decided it was a fool’s errand; they were never going to look as good.

Another month or so passed. I found and placed the order for my wedding dress. I continued to search for an alternate pair of dreamy purple heels, but time and time again went back to the picture of the beaded ones on The Knot.

Finally, in mid October, genius struck (or crazy internet stalkerness struck, whatever you want to call it)! It occurred to me to e-mail the photographer of the shoes, to see if he had any idea where they were from. He, of course, did not (and probably thought I was an insane bride for asking… uh, yeah, I am! Why do you think I spent my entire last post establishing how much I love shoes?). But I then thought to Google the bride’s name, and that’s where I hit pay dirt!

It turns out, the bride works for her family’s photography business, which was about the third Google result. I quickly filled out the company’s Contact Us form on their website, saying that I knew it was a long shot, but did anyone have any idea where the featured shoes were from? And guess what? Her mom responded, saying they were actually the bridesmaids’ shoes, not the bride’s, and her other daughter just happened to still have the shoes in her closet, and would be happy to sell them to me!!! This bride’s mother didn’t even think I was silly for contacting her and was very happy to find a home for the shoes.

I was so insanely happy that I seriously thought I might die! Who cared if the shoes were a size and a half too big? Padded inserts and the ankle strap would make it work! They were in the mail and on their way and I HAD THE PERFECT WEDDING SHOES!

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That was, until I actually received the box in the mail and opened them and…. they were not purple! I was completely crushed. My heart was torn out and stomped on and pierced with the stiletto heel of these shoes. My mom had always said that the picture of the shoes didn’t look purple on her computer screen, but on my home laptop and both monitors at my work, they were definitely, undeniably purple in the picture. And, I’d found them by looking at purple tagged wedding pictures on The Knot.

So, want to see what they really look like? They are still very pretty, but not purple! More of a bronze/green shade, with bronze beads.

And a side by side comparison of the actual color and the pro photo color:

I was seriously crushed, but my mom suggested I wait until after my wedding dress came in in mid February, and decide what to do once I could see the dress in the gold color I ordered. In the meantime, I considered using fabric pens to turn the shoes purple, which I tested on some scrap fabric.

The fabric pen in the last picture above worked the best, but it is quite dark, and might just blend in and make the shoes a darker color of green/bronze/purple. And the beading would still be bronze.

So I’m pretty much at a loss, and I need the hive’s help. These are really pretty shoes the way they are, and they do go with my gold dress, which I finally just got to pick up (but still need alterations). But it just breaks my heart to not get to wear purple heels on my wedding day, and plus, the shoes really are way too big. And if I try to change the color of the shoes, I’m afraid I might just ruin them forever, which would be a shame, too.

So, please help me!