My Wedding Shoes

Andy and I are very set on the idea of having a much more casual wedding atmosphere. In fact, we are hoping for it to be more like a celebratory party than any kind of formalized sequence of events.

In that spirit, we have been discussing what we're going to wear. Thanks to numerous bridal and wedding-planning magazines, we realized that it would be perfectly fine to do whatever we want, as long as it's tasteful and somewhat consistent.

I am looking at going semi-formal. Nice pants, jacket and tie. Probably not going the tuxedo route. They can get pretty uncomfortable. Most of the weddings I've been to have included me as a member of the wedding party, which meant tuxedos. In nearly every case, I can recall removing at least the jacket and vest or cummerbund, and untucking the shirt so I could dance more comfortably during the reception.

When it comes to wanting to dance for hours, though, the most important thing is the shoes. Formal shoes, especially rentals, are amazingly painful after a few hours. Sure they look great, and they have nice slippery bottoms for dancing enhancement on polished hardwood floors, but they HURT.

Not wanting to approach our special day as something whimsical or to be taken lightly, I asked Andy what she'd think about me adding my own special "sauce" to whatever outfit I chose, by adding some custom-made Converse All-Stars. Anyone who knows me well knows that this particular style of shoe is a staple of my casual wardrobe, and I felt it would be a nice touch to personalize the wedding plans.

She seemed supportive of the idea, so I went to Converse's website and started designing some shoes using our theme colors: A light blue (theirs is a little more saturated than what we chose, but oh well), sand, and dark brown.

I wanted brown laces too, but Converse doesn't offer them.

Here's a 360º view of how they turned out so far. (requires Flash)