I haven’t seen my niece, B,  in a while, so when she said she needed help finding shoes to go with her grad dress, of course I jumped at the chance!

Quality time with my niece AND shoe shopping?  Yes, please!

B showed me her dress, and it was stunning – she looked gorgeous.  We just needed to find the perfect accoutrements….

We walked the mall over, stopping in to every shoe store to see if they had anything that matched the deep bronze of her gown.  In one store (that I found to be over-priced without the quality to match), B found a couple of pairs of very pretty pumps that matched her dress perfectly.  Having many pairs of uncomfortable shoes myself, I could recognize that both pairs of those shoes were not going to the best shoes to dance in or run around taking pictures in.

So, being the annoying, know-it-all Aunt that I can be, I made her walk around and around (and around!) the store, quizzing her on any pinching or rubbing, or slipping.  But having discovered the beauty of cute shoes, she couldn’t focus on the height of the heel or the fact that it kept slipping off her foot – she just kept pausing in front of the mirror, grinning, and staring at the pretty peep-toes on her feet.

B is a smart girl though, she agreed to put them aside and keep looking to see if there was anything better (she also did this with the jewellery, the clutch and the sunglasses she liked, just to make sure they were absolutely perfect).  And I’m glad she did, because then we found these:

The bronze matches her dress, the brown matches her belt, and the snake-skin is just too fun to refuse.  She slipped them on, and I showed her the strappy-shoe shimmy (push down with your foot, while wiggling the straps up).  Once they were in place and the zipper was up, she started to walk around the store with a bit of uncertainty.

I really had to bite my tongue – these weren’t what she originally had in mind (but I LOVED them!), they weren’t traditionally “pretty” for a grad dress (but I LOVED them!), and they weren’t that much of a heel (but I LOVED them!).  I really wanted her to love them too, but I tried my hardest not to impose my judgements on this 18-year-old who already had a clear vision of her big day.

But the more she walked, the more she smiled.  She kept saying that it didn’t feel like she was even in heels, and that she could walk in them all day.  She liked the “pop” of the snake-skin and thought they provided a wow-factor in an otherwise traditional event.

I pointed out that she could get also so much more use out of them once grad was over – she could wear them with jeans, or a skirt…or she could lend them to her oh-so-helpful Aunt…

She put them on hold to think about it, checked out another couple of stores and then, deciding that these were THE shoes, she happily handed over her cash.

Then we found a snake-skin clutch to match!

She really is a girl after my own heart.