The things we do for love

And not even my own love! Total strangers' love. To put it more simply, my husband's boss's stepson (did you follow that?) is getting married on Tuesday night and I was stuck with nothing to wear.

I didn't want to go out and spend a lot of money on a dress I'd never wear again, so I decided to dress up a more casual dress with heels and a shawl instead. It's a great summer sundress - solid black, knit cotton tanktop type bodice and free and flouncy skirt. The top half was a bit too casual for an evening wedding though, so I bit the bullet and did something I swore I'd never do again.

I bought these:

In case you can't tell from the picture, those are 3 inch stiletto heels, and backless ones at that. I am absolutely going to break my leg in these things. It's been literally 20 years since I've worn shoes like this. I'm all about comfort - give me flats or platforms any day. I spent a full year of high school in stiletto heels in an effort to at least reach the navel of my 6'5" boyfriend. When he dumped me and went off to college I dumped the shoes and swore never again. And as I got older, I realized that I just don't enjoy suffering for the sake of fashion, or for a man. It's just not me. Don't get me wrong, I love cute shoes, but they have to be comfortable.

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that these shoes were a real sacrifice on my part. My only consolation is that they were very expensive and well-made shoes on sale for a pittance. So cheap in fact that I couldn't possibly justify spending two and a half times that much on a much more comfy looking equally high but much wider heel. And they do look damn good with the dress. Everyone needs at least one pair of come hither shoes in their closet, right? (And in the interests of humiliating myself publicly for the sake of blog honesty I will confess that I actually wore them around the kitchen yesterday afternoon as I baked cupcakes for the kids so that I could practice a bit and hopefully lessen the chance of a total wipeout on Tuesday. Thankfully no papparazzi were lurking in my cupboards to catch me in the act!)

On the bright side, the purchase made me eligible to buy these for just $11. I suspect they'll be getting a lot more use than the black ones. In fact, I'm wearing them right now...