Shoe woes

I hate shoe shopping. I really do. My feet are size 7 (usually, anyway), which seems to be the size that always sells out first, and the ball of my foot is just a bit wider than the average 7, but my feet are too short for size 8. Argh! In the stereotypical-girlie-shopping departemnt, I much prefer to drool over bags. They don't have to fit anything.

But, of course, I can't exactly walk bare foot down the aisle, so I needed to buy shoes for the wedding dress (actually, 2 pairs, but lets deal with one thing at a time, shall we?). My parents came to visit this past weekend and we used this opportunity to go shoe shopping. My mom has a much higher tolerance for shoe shopping than I do; in fact, she bought her shoes for the wedding first, and plans to look for a dress to match them!

We went to the Eaton Centre and looked at almost every shoe store in the mall before we found the perfect pair. Our main concern was the heel; I'm an absolute dufous at a lot of "girlie" things and one of the highest on that list is walking in high heels. The heels couldn't be too high and they couldn't be stilettoes. Walking down the aisle is the very last place I want to fall flat on my face (and end up on America's Funniest Home Videos or whatever knock-off version is playing now). The shoes we found are white, of course, with just a little peek-a-boo of an open toe. The heels are stiletto, but the only go up about an inch and a half. I think I should be able to handle that! They have 2 little circles of leather around the part that crosses over the top of the toes for some visual interest.

I'd love to be able to post pictures of the shoes, but that is not currently possible, due, in part, to those cute little circles of leather. First, the salesman had to go to another location in the mall to get the shoes in my size, which took about 10 minutes. We almost left, thinking he had forgotten us and gone on his break. When he brought them to me to try on, we discovered that one of the little circles of leather wasn't glued on like all the rest; it just kind of flopped there looking lop-sided. No problem, they said. We'll just glue it down for you, no charge. Standing at the cash register and watching the saleswoman pack them into the shoe box Mom noticed a line of glue along the top of the leather circle.

She pointed this out to the salesgirl show said, "no problem.  I'll just clean it up".  So she took out an arsenal of cleaning products: lotions, brushes, cloths, sprays.  But when she was finished, instead of a small line of glue there was a big grey smudge across the top of the toes!  Mom asked if they had another pair in that size and she said it was the only one.  So we asked if we could get a discount, since it looked like we would now have to buy white leather dye to fix it.  Because they were already on sale, she could only give us $10, which we hardly felt was compensation for watching her ruin my wedding shoes right before our eyes.  At this point the manger came over and took the shoe out of the salesgirl's hands to fix it himself.  Of course, all he did was the same things she had just done and he turned the grey smudge into a black one!  Finally he suggested she look to see if there were any in the warehouse and thankfully there were.  So the shoe store is going to ship them to me, free of charge.  Hurray!

What's in a name?

If you had asked me a week ago how I felt about taking my husband's name after marriage, I would have replied that I didn't much care one way or the other, but that he did so I would take his name. Then my dad asked me to take a hyphenated name so that I could keep my maiden name as part of my legal name. He was asking this because he was updating his will and he didn't want there to be any complications due to my name change when it comes time for the will to matter. All of a sudden, I realized that I do care. I've really grown attached to this Broccoli thing, and I certainly didn't want a hyphenated name at all. Plus, I have to think of the kids growing up with either a hyphenated name or a different name from their mother, both of which can cause confusion. Mr. Broccoli, of course, said it was entirely my decision to make (although he did really like the Broccoli thing, as well). What to do?

I spoke with a co-worker who got married 5 years ago, and she gave me the perfect answer that makes everybody happy. She said that legally changing your name is a long and pricey process and that nowadays, most women don't do it at all. Instead, the "assume" their husband's last name. This means that once I have a marriage license I can legally have all my IDs, credit cards, bank accounts, passport etc changed over to my new name without actually having it legally changed. I will still legally have my maiden name and I will still legally take on my husband's. Hurray for answers that keep me from having to make a decision!

In other news, I went home to Nova Scotia a few weeks ago for my bridal shower. It was a nice, relaxed, intimate affair in the living room of a waterfront house my parents own and rent out in the tourist season. My mom and grandmother catered it themselves and we used it as a chance to try out some wines for the reception dinner (I loved the red, an Italian called Masi. Still looking for a good white, though).

It was mostly my mother's friends, but they are all women that I've grown up with so I didn't feel out of place. Both my grandmother's were there, of course, as well as my cousin's wife and their oldest daughter who I hadn't seen since she was 7. She's 13 now. I'm sorry, but I don't remember ever giving her permission to grow up. She's supposed to stay little and cute like when I used to babysit her! There was also the daughter of one of my mother's best friends, another former babysitting charge. I hadn't seen her since she was about 13 and I was 18. The first thing she said when she saw me was, "Oh my God! You're so old! I can't believe you're getting married!". I'm so old?! Is that any way to talk to her venerable elder? :)

Here are the few pictures my mom took with my new camera:



Me, surrounded by my booty! Oh, and the guests, too.

A crowd shot.

I really think that paper plate hats covered in gift ribbons and bows will be really in this summer. Watch for it. My little cousin made this for me and did a wonderful job.




The spread. Yum

The all-important cake. This was baked by an old friend of mine from high school. My mom ran into her a few days before the shower and found that she's starting a home baking business. I had just picked my wedding colours the day before, that beautiful Autumn orange and my favourite colour, dark green, and it's great how she was able to incorporate that into the cake decoration.

Preparing the cake from group consumption (aka cutting the cake).