One Step Closer to Wedding Day Glamour

If you were thinking about jumping in your car and heading down to Metrotown to pick up some flat, silver, wedding-appropriate shoes, don't. Put down your purse and car keys and get back to the couch because I can tell you that I have scoured the 15 shoe stores in that purgatory of a mall and there is only one pair: and it's mine.

I've written before about how the hip replacement has interfered with my plans to be a sexy beast on S.'s wedding day. I've already complained about not wanting to walk down the aisle with my cane tapping out its own version of "Here Comes the Bride." (Still haven't quite figured what to do about that, actually). But little did I know that finding the appropriate shoes for the bridesmaids dress would be a three-week ordeal.

If you want high-heeled silver shoes, especially if their heels are made of lucite, then you are in luck. You can walk into any shoe store in the Greater Vancouver area and come back with strappy shoes with enough sparkle to blind someone when the sun strikes at the right angle. But if you want flat silver shoes, you will pretty much have to sell a kidney and the rights to your firstborn child, because those things are rarer than hen's teeth. You can find grey leather shoes, gray suede shoes, sequinned gray shoes, shoes with little silver skulls embroidered on them, wedges with silver snakeskin, silver crocs, silver flats with gigantic silver and pink bows on the front and silver rhinestone-embossed flipflops. In fact, most silver, wedding-appropriate flat shoes are of the sandal variety.

Now, anyone who's ever had a hip replacement knows that flip-flops are a big no no, since they're a tripping hazard. They also make a slapping sound when you walk, and the combination of the slapping of the flipflops and the tapping of the cane would be a little much. (Plus, you know, doing a face plant in the middle of the aisle, shattering my hip and having to watch the vows from the comfort of a stretcher is kind of a wedding don't. I've visited theknot.com enough to know that anything that steals the attention from the bride is bad etiquette. Plus, one of my goals for the wedding is to not wind up on Youtube).

But luckily, I will not have to walk down the aisle with my feet spraypainted silver. Thanks to my mom's eagle eyes, we were able to find an appropriate pair of shoes in a store that apparently caters to dayshift pole dancers. My shoes were wedged between a pair of thigh-high red vinyl stiletto boots with tassles and these bizarre fur-covered lucite bad boys. Even though the store was having a massive sale and a pair of old Asian ladies were aggressively haggling over the price of some nurse's shoes (seriously, this store had everything), and even though the saleslady nearly broke one of her incredible fake nails trying to put the shoes on me, my mom and I perservered and emerged victorious.

So, even though I will be limping down the aisle leaning on my "Air-go Comfort cane," and even though I will probably take the shoes off the minute the ceremony is over, I am one step (no pun intended) closer to bringing an extra dose of wedding glam to the occasion. Here comes the maid of honor, b*tches, and she's ready to cut you for the bouquet!