Shoes to Wear to Your Wedding

If you intend to tear up the dance floor.

Thank you to everyone who shared questions (and supplied answers!) in the wedding Q&A thread from last week. I tried to respond live to anything I felt like I could answer with a briefer response. Two topics in particular came up multiple times in the thread, as well as in my DMs, that I think would benefit from a longer format: 1) wedding footwear and 2) engagement rings. I’ve decided to devote full, separate newsletters to each of them since there’s a lot to say. Today’s post — a market report on shoes to wear to your wedding — will close out Wedding Month. Look out for a future newsletter on engagement ring shopping where I plan on bringing in some additional expertise from friends in the jewelry industry.

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The ballet flats I wore to my wedding, plus some outfits I’ve styled them with subsequently.

When considering what shoes to wear to my wedding, my criteria were as follows:

• Practical and relatively unfussy (to contrast with the romantic Regency-era vibe of my dress)

• Friendly to different types of terrain (i.e. grass)

• Comfortable enough to dance in

I ended up wearing a pair of white Chanel ballet flats that I bought at the Barney’s closing sale (RIP). I loved how they looked with the dress, and I appreciate that they are the kind of shoes I continue to find useful in my day-to-day wardrobe years later.

I applied a similar set of criteria (practicality, comfort, longevity) while putting together the below market report — which is why you won’t find any stilettos here. I focused on three categories of styles that I would personally gravitate toward for wedding footwear: ballet flats, low block heels or wedges, and sandals. The styles vary in terms of formality, so some may be more relevant to the events surrounding a wedding if the main event skews fancier. I included some secondhand picks but used filters during my search to exclude anything that wasn’t in very good, excellent, or never-worn condition.

Ballet Flats

1. Jimmy Choo white satin ballet flats with crystal embellishment, $194.35 (size 8)

2. Loeffler Randall cream satin ballet flat, $250 (multiple sizes)

3. Stuart Weitzman satin ballet flats with mesh bow, $154 (size 7)

4. Alohas crochet flats, $126 (multiple sizes)

5. Prada Mary-Janes, $399.99 (size 9.5)

6. Everlane glove shoes, $75 (size 11). Similar pair here for $158 in multiple sizes.

Low Block Heels or Wedges

1. White patent leather block heel Mary-Janes, $198.23 (multiple sizes)

2. Aeyde pumps, $169 (multiple sizes)

3. Castaner espadrilles — higher wedge version here for $150, lower wedge version here for $85 (multiple sizes)

4. Vintage Ferragamo Lillaz Vara shoes, $15 (size 9.5). This is an insane price for these shoes — which retail for $880. One of them is missing a heel cover, but a local cobbler could easily repair that for you.

5. Larroude broderie sandals, $315 (multiple sizes)

6. Valentino Garavani shoes, $182.63 (size 6.5). I LOVE THESE SO MUCH.

7. Alterre Bell sandal, $270 (multiple sizes)

Sandals

1. AGL sandals, $327 (multiple sizes)

2. Ancient Greek Sandals with flowers, $180 (multiple sizes)

3. Emporio Armani sandals, $153 (multiple sizes)

4. Alohas crochet flower sandals, $200 (multiple sizes). NB: The straps on these are definitely on the daintier side, so probably more conducive to a rehearsal dinner than a rowdy dance floor.

5. Pollini basketweave sandals, $149 (multiple sizes)

And thus concludes Gumshoe’s inaugural Wedding Month! If there are other themes like this that you think would be interesting for us to delve into in the future, please feel free to leave a comment or reply to this email with suggestions. Regular programming will resume next week with my Sticky Note for May.

xo Harling