Mother of the Bride

By popular request (well, by Lynne, who is a regular visitor to my blog) I attach a picture of my wedding shoes. She had remembered that I had ordered online about 14 pairs of shoes to try on at home with my mother of the bride outfit. I could not take the dress or wear it to umpteen shoe shops to try them on there, so had ordered them online to try with the dress  at home. Of course I was not going to keep all 14 pairs, but to find the best match to the dress and ones that were comfy as they had to stand the test of wearing them all day. 

The dress was a shocking pink colour. It was not my usual go-to colour. In fact my favourite colour is blue - in all its shades - but most of all I love navy blue. It is slimming, never dates, doesn't make you stand out and is conservative with a small c. I had in fact bought a lacy navy blue dress back in November and was comparing any other dress I saw or tried on with that, each time conceding that the navy dress was by far the best. However, it had been belatedly decided that the bridesmaids were wearing blue and the groom's and groomsmens' ties were also blue, so we considered blue for me might not be an option, if I wanted to be a bit different. Then around 10 weeks before the wedding, Kay and I visited a mother-of-the-bride shop not far from us, just as a joke really as I never fancied any of the dated styles in their shop window. When I tried on one of their fuschia pink dresses, Kay immediately said THAT was the dress I had to have. 

This is me trying it on in the shop. You will see the shoulders look funny. That is because I am obviously shorter in the bodice department than the average woman. This "problem" had never identified itself to me before now, but this couturier dress is styled in such a way, that it became very evident. If the shoulders fit, the waist is too low. If the waist fits, the shoulders are too high.  So the shoulders were pinned correctly in the shop to be cut later by a seamstress and resewn. 

The beige shoes belonged to the shop just to get the right effect when trying their dresses on, but we all agreed that beige (or "nude" as it is often called) was probably the best colour to accompany the dress. The venue for the wedding reception stipulated no stilletos as the venue is 300 years old and the wooden floor therefore very precious, so there were many boxes that the shoes had to tick. In the end, out of the 14 pairs I had ordered online, surprisingly the cheapest ones were the most comfortable and fitted the bill in every way.  These are they....

Made of beige fabric which simulated suede, they had block heels, cross-over straps to keep them on my feet and were comfortable enough to see me through the day. I did wear them in whilst watching TV for about two weeks beforehand, so I didn't wear them for the first time on the wedding day.

The dress was duly altered at the shoulders. I hired a hat in matching colours from a local hat shop and this was the finished effect. 

Now if ever I fancy a trip to the Ascot races, I'm all ready, otherwise I can't see this look is going to serve me well doing the weekly supermarket shop in Sainsburys.