Friends, meet shoes. Shoes, meet friends. The tale of these shoes is a saga to say the least, and this wouldn’t be a very interesting post without a backstory, now would it? Read on!

The Manolo Blahnik Love Story

I sat down on the couch one day and flipped on the television. Scrolling through the guide, I noticed the Sex & The City movie was on. I can’t pass on some good Carrie time, so I flipped to it and settled in. Two soft and mushy hours later, I watched (for the billionth time) as Big proposed to Carrie by slipping on her blue bejeweled Manolo Blahniks.

That’d be a great wedding shoe, I thought unoriginally. Thousands of brides–well, maybe hundreds–have worn these shoes on their wedding day, and it’s probably not only due to the fact that it provides a rather stylish and convenient something blue.

$945, ouch! I physically recoiled. I’ve never paid that much for a pair of shoes in my life. I’ve never paid more than $200 for a pair of shoes. How could I spend a thousand on a single pair? How do so many brides do this??

Reading more about the shoes on my favorite shoe forum (yes, I have one), I realized that women generally rationalize their wedding day as the one time (or first time) in their life to buy a pair of luxury designer shoes. I’m talking Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, Brian Atwood, Yves Saint Laurent…of course, many brides don’t go this route, and frankly I can’t blame them, since you’ll probably trash them on their debut day by dancing them to death. Or take them off halfway through the reception.

But I couldn’t get them out of my mind. So I bookmarked them, pinned them, what-have-you.

Months later, scrolling through the Neiman Marcus website, I saw these.

Pale pink perfection. It was the blue Manolo Blahniks, but better, because it actually matched with my wedding theme. And it’s my fave color. Obvi.

Same story here: I bookmarked. Actually–full disclosure here, people–I opened it up as a tab in my iPhone’s browser. And kept it there for 3 months. If I restarted my phone, I went back to the page this pretty little shoe was on. I carried it around with me.

And then it sold out of my size. I DIED.

After HB resuscitated me, I tried to move on. I looked around for other shoes, but my heart was tied to my ex — that lovely little pink shoe that cost more than most human being’s mortgage payment. But I couldn’t be satisfied. My heart was broken. I would have to walk barefoot down the aisle.

And then. One day, lying in bed, I navigated once more to my iPhone’s favorite web page–and like a miracle, my size had popped back in stock.

(Well, for preorder–did I mention the shoe wouldn’t ship until three weeks before my wedding? I’m crazy.)

My heart leapt and I bit the bullet. I was like a madwoman with my iPhone pressed up to my nose trying to frantically tap in my address & payment information on the tiny screen.

I sat back, breathed a sigh of relief, and prepared to wait until April 23rd–when the Shoes were scheduled to arrive.

About a week later, I got an email from Neiman Marcus stating that my shoes had shipped and would be in my hands tomorrow. Tomorrow!!

Opening them up is a tale for another time — HB actually imposed a limit on how many times I could talk about the shoes (once per day). They’re beautiful, and they’re all mine.

Click here to see more wedding-related posts. Tomorrow on PSS: the honeymoon revealed–did you guess right?