Weddingbee Blog

My love affair with J.Crew began shortly after Mr. Cardigan and I got engaged. The dresses! The jewelry! The shoes!! I visit their website way too often, poring over all of the gorgeous things that I totally can’t afford. I decided almost immediately that I would love for my bridesmaids’ dresses to come from J.Crew (because, seriously, who can resist those amazing dresses?!), but that’s not what this post is about. Oh no. This post is the story of my wedding shoes.

Very early on in the planning process (I’m talking like 2 months into being engaged), I stumbled upon the shoes to end all shoes. It was a normal enough day - I was just browsing J.Crew as usual, looking at the pretty wedding-related stuff when all of a sudden these beauties were staring at me:

Hello, lovely! (Source)

My jaw dropped open. Literally.

I was instantly smitten with these shoes and I knew I had to have them. The only problem was, the price tag was well over $200. Not. Good. My dear parents are paying for the majority of the wedding, and I figured my mother would balk at the idea of spending more than $50 on a pair of shoes, much less $200. So, I told myself it just wasn’t meant to be and tried to move on…

But seriously? I just couldn’t get those shoes out of my head. I kept looking for shoes at a million different websites, but I found that my criteria became very specific: satin, bright yellow, peep toes with a knot on the toes, and at least 3 inch heels. Sound familiar? I’m telling you, it’s impossible to find another shoe that looks exactly like that one. Every time I found one that was close there was just something off about it. And now, let me just say that I know it’s completely ridiculous that I was this obsessed with finding my wedding shoes right this second. I had over a year until the wedding, people, and I was searching for bright yellow shoes in the middle of FALL. Crazy much? I never told you I was the most rational person in the world. Mr. C kept reminding me that I had plenty of time and that if I would just wait until spring came, I would find TONS of amazing yellow shoes out there. But that just wasn’t good enough for me. I had to have the J.Crew ones. It was an obsession.

A month or so passed and then… sigh… the shoes went on sale. When I say sale, I mean that they were still $150 and absolutely out of my price range, but still! It was a sale! I visited them almost daily, but never brought them up to my mom because, really, I know her. I figured she would just laugh in my face. So, I had all but given up on these shoes, until that fateful day when I went dress shopping. I had pretty much resigned myself to getting dyeable shoes from David’s Bridal or something, and I was talking to my mom about it when we went to pick up my dress (more on that later!). I had a mild heart attack when I turned around in the store and there looking right back at me were THE SHOES! They were black, but they were EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED! I got our sales consultant over there to ask her if these came in any other colors… her response? “Yes! They come in black and white!”

I was crushed! I thought for sure I was going to get my shoes. My mom asked me what all of the fuss was about, so I finally gave in and told her about my dream shoes and how I couldn’t stop thinking about them. And, my friends, you will never guess her response. She calmly replied “Well, if you know they’re the ones you want maybe we should just go ahead and get them and set them aside until the wedding.” WHAT?! My mom? She just said that? I reminded her that they were $150 dollars, and she simply nodded and said that if it was that important to me, then it was fine! And, I feel like I really should emphasize to you that this is not like my mom at all! I’m still convinced the woman who had this conversation with me COULD NOT have been my mother. I don’t know who she was! It was like this crazy person came in and possessed my mom and made her say crazy things. But I liked it!

So, that night I rushed home to order the shoes. I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. I was finally going to have my shoes! I went straight to J.Crew’s website, clicked over to the shoes section… and they were sold out. Really. I can’t make this stuff up. I wanted to cry.

But, now that I knew it was a possibility, I was bound and determined to find those shoes one way or another. I began scouring the internet and checked eBay almost daily until that one fateful day when I found a listing that read “J.Crew Carmen Satin Peep-Toes in Saffron, Size 6.5″. I’m sure Mr. Cardigan thought I was crazy with all of the squealing and dancing around I was doing. And they were only $90 dollars! Woohoo!!! So, I watched the auction for 6 days until it ended (and let me just say those 6 days were torture!!!) and on that last wonderful day, I placed the order for my shoes!!

Less than a week later I got a package in the mail and opened them to find this:

VICTORY!!!! (Personal photo)

Was your shoe search as intense as mine? Do you ever get caught up in having to have ONE SPECIFIC THING for your wedding and nothing else will do?