Bridesmaid dilemma
I’m a bridesmaid for my friend’s wedding in a few months. She’s also a bridesmaid in my wedding – we’ve been friends since fourth grade, and together we’ve been through high school, college, first jobs, first loves and everything else in between.
Recently my friend selected our bridesmaid dresses, and I’m really pleased with her choice – I live out of town, and I had visions of peach taffeta and unflattering mid-calf hemlines…
Thankfully, her choice was a very tasteful black silk gown with a hemline that dusts the floor, thin spaghetti straps and an empire waist design. It’s simple and elegant and I will definitely wear it again – and, as an added bonus, it was on sale from $300 down to $120! I’m totally wrapped.
She has three bridesmaids and she suggested that we wear strappy black sandals with our dresses – which I’m also thrilled about, as I already have two pairs of said shoes.
Then a few days ago, I received this email:
“As for shoes, we’ll go for a black strappy shoe. It would be good if the shoes don’t have too large a heel on them, however. Megan is going to get some heels to boost her height a bit, so if the rest of us have just a regular height heel, it should work together well. Regular height heel is usually 1 1/2 to 2 inch.”
Megan is one of the bridesmaids, and she’s 5”2. The other bridesmaid Venita and I are both 5”9, and the bride is 5”10. So I guess the intended effect here is that if we all wear small heels, and Megan wears killer 4-inch stilettos, she’ll be able to close the 7-inch height gap when we’re standing at the alter.
So here’s my problem: I like high heels. The higher the better. I’ve checked both of my pairs of black strappy’s, and it confirmed what I already knew: they both have a 3-inch heel, which is well outside of my bride’s “regular heel height” mandate.
It’s her big day, and I want to do whatever I can to make it run smoothly – but isn’t a specification on the height of our heels a little bit… bridezilla?!
I haven’t told my friend yet that my heels don’t fit her criteria, because I’m afraid she’ll ask me to buy another pair. I’m already spending a lot of money on her wedding, as she’s getting married in our hometown (so as well as paying for the dress, hair and make-up, the present and hens party, my fiancé and I have to buy flights and accommodation) and I seriously don’t want to shell out for a third pair of strappy black heels.
I feel like it’s a bit of an unreasonable request, but I don’t know whether I’m being a crappy bridesmaid, or whether she is edging into bridezilla territory?
I’m not sure how to resolve it, so I might let it sit for a weeks and thing bring it up closer to the wedding day, when she’ll hopefully be too preoccupied with seating charts and her dress fittings to be worried about my pesky heels.
And if she’s really unhappy about it, I’ll wear my existing heels and hunch slightly when we’re standing at the altar…