This is the story of the black dyed shoes.
After many long years of rocky relationships, one of my best friends from college found her soulmate and was happily planning her wedding. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, which I happily accepted. I wouldn’t have missed this defining milestone in her life for the world!
When it comes to a friends’ wedding, you are not supposed to think about yourself but guess what.
I was thinking about myself.
More specifically, looking at the near impossibility of leaving our two small children at home with my husband in San Francisco (where we lived) with little to no support for a week. Add to that tight finances and the likely cost of this adventure and panic set in.
A number of selfish thoughts ran through my mind.
Why couldn’t she have gotten married five years ago?
And why does she live so far away?
More like, why do I live so far away?
I shut my eyes and my mind and sent her my credit card so she could purchase the $300 bridesmaid gown (that was three sizes too big) and send it to me in the mail.
Then came the alterations, which was another $125. But more troubling was the time it took from short weekends with my family in between an intense full time job at a Silicon Valley public relations firm. Now, the idea of spending $425 on a gown I will never wear again may not seem too bad, but this was over ten years ago. Oh and did I mention the shoes.
Black Dyed Shoes
Let’s talk about the shoes for a moment.
They were a very specific brand, make and model of shoe. nine west, white shoes. Wait a minute, dresses were black, why am I buying $300 white “satinish” shoes?
Well you need to dye them.
Black.
How many black satin shoes are there in the world? I imagine there could be thousands, maybe even millions. But I have learned that at times like these you don’t question the bride. So off I go on another busy weekend to purchase overpriced white shoes. Then to another store to do the dye job (I wouldn’t trust myself to dye them at home what with the baby and the toddler and all).
This required two trips to downtown San Francisco from my home. Again eating away into the few weekends I had before heading out to the wedding. My husband was practicing infinite patience through all of this as he was handling the toddlers while I was running around the city.
When it came time to head to the airport, I packed all my bridesmaid accoutrement, kissed my two girls and my husband good bye and headed East.
When I arrived I gave myself over to the event and all the activities. I realized that my stress in getting prepared was real. But it was also worth it. It was time to give up control and be part of someone else’s world for a while.
The Wedding
The wedding was gorgeous, the bride was stunning and the event was so fun. It allowed me to connect with a part of my history that I had almost forgotten.
The night before the wedding my friend and I had a deep heart to heart talk. Through uncontrollable tears, we realized just how much we missed each other and vowed not to let years go by again before reconnecting.
Looking back, I have learned two things. One is to not stress over something you don’t plan on changing (like your friends’ wedding plans). It’s better just to give yourself over and embrace the experience.
Secondly, if you are ever in a situation where you are asking someone with a full time job and small children to do anything – and I mean anything – whether that be volunteering, standing in a wedding, joining a girls birthday weekend – to be as kind and forgiving as possible if that person makes a choice that you might not like (i.e. saying no) or if they need to modify their participation in some way.
So what happened to the black dyed shoes? I gave them to charity shortly after I arrived back home. I hope someone else is enjoying them now.
Do you have a story about turning yourself over to something outside your control? I would love to hear about it.
Such a real and relatable experience! I was asked to be in my cousins wedding and she had very specific dresses and shoes that we had to wear as well, both of which were expensive. My dress was already pricy but the boutique that sold it didn’t carry any actual sizes in the store so they measured me and told me the size to order. I was 1 size above what they considered plus size so I had to pay extra for the “extra fabric”. Once the dress came in it was TWO sizes too big and I had to then pay to have it altered and taken in.
I enjoyed being in my cousin’s wedding and sharing her special day with her, but at the time I was putting myself through grad school, working 2 jobs to try to stay afloat and make rent in an apartment that my boyfriend and I couldn’t afford at the time. It would have been nice to have some compassion or flexibility on her end but at the end of the day I gave up trying to control things and enjoyed the experience.
I have been in a situation where I spent a lot of money to fly to a family event, the host did not speak to me more than a few words and didn’t even thank me for coming, let alone the present!
I find that sometimes it’s not even worth it, next time I rather send a really good present and not go out of my way to please someone else…