Metallic heels dress up modern wedding gown

Forget the boring satin pump or bland peau de soie ballet flat on your wedding day — especially if your soul yearns for sparkle.

THE TRENDLET: Strappy metallic shoes are bringing modern-day shine to classic but newfangled wedding gowns.

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? Shoes have always played a role in wedding traditions. During medieval times, brides wore to their nuptials shoes their fathers gave them, and they changed into shoes provided by their husbands for the service. That was symbolic of the woman’s transfer from her father’s household to her spouse’s. Tradition also called for fathers of brides to tuck a silver sixpence into their daughters’ shoes to usher in prosperity: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence in her shoe.”

For her 16th-century wedding, 14-year-old Catherine de’ Medici of Italy chose metallic high-heeled pumps to wed the future King Henry II of France. From that moment on, heels would be the shoe de rigueur of wedding days for centuries.

But it wasn’t until 1840, when England’s Queen Victoria wed Prince Albert that all-white everything would become the official bridal hue of the West. Matching shoes would be key to the matrimonial uniform through the late 1990s. That was when Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik became household names and more brides desired individuality over tradition. These days metallic shoes — in embellished gold, silver, or rose gold — in all of their charm are wedding-day cool.

WHO IS WEARING THEM? Any bride who just may, perhaps, wish to wear her wedding shoes again.

SHOULD YOU WEAR THEM? Yep. And it’s OK if you want to change into a sparkling flat at your reception when nobody’s looking.