Planning an overseas wedding like yours truly has it's disadvantages, mainly being that before you can actually visit the country of your nuptials to choose and book important things like venues, churches etc, in order to feel like you are really a bride, you spend a lot of time browsing wedding paraphenalia online. Unfortunately browsing can turn to shopping before you've even had time to register you've clicked 'add to cart'.
I wrote the above in the third person to justify my first moment of bridal madness. Sure this won't be the last, but I'm 'fessing up to you all, here goes...
My fiance and I planned a wedding-planning mission back to the UK where we're getting wed. We booked heaps of appointments at the venues we had our heart set on/were in love with and I also decided that being that it can take up to nine months to order a wedding dress, that it would be a smart move to cram in some dress shopping while I was in England. So we booked our flights to Blighty in March 2012 - leaving me six months with nothing but the internet to satisfy my wedding planning needs. Dangerous territory.
Browsing the endless websites and blogs dedicated to bridal Choos and Loubooties was simply never going to be enough. I WANTED TO OWN SOMETHING WEDDING RELATED.
Which is how I found myself at 1am clasping a glass of red wine and browsing an online sale of bridal footwear.
And there they were - a perfect pair of oyster-satin, platform peep-toed five-inchers - and they were in the sale. A snip at $90, when they should have been $250. It was love at first sight and before I knew it I was typing in my credit card details. There's no rush like it.
Or at least that was the case until they arrived. And my fiance took delivery. The convo went something like this:
Boy: A shoebox has arrived for you - thought you were saving up to buy some wedding shoes?
Me: I was, I mean, these are the wedding shoes (grabbing box and stashing in bedroom)
Boy: Thought you were going to wait until you'd found your dress?
Me: Well I'm not ok, they're perfect and I'll find a dress to match with THEM!
Boy: Right you are (confused expression)
My triumph was shortlived however - in private I tore open the box - the shoes were perfectly lovely but so high I could barely walk in them, even around the bedroom. Plus the soles were PURPLE. Yes - why the hell hadn't I checked before I bought in a stupid drunken moment of bridal madness?
In a flash I just knew - they weren't the ones for me. Oh, and because they were in the sale, no returns.
When I told my chief bridesmaid on Skype she said, very slowly "STOP SHOPPING ONLINE". I couldn't agree more - clearly me and my mouse are dangerous companions and can't be trusted.
But there's just one last thing I have to do before I begin my online shopping ban - put those frigging shoes on Ebay.
Until the next moment of madness, which won't be far away, I'm sure...
Yours truly, madly, deeply,
The Reality Bride x
