Three gems fell off my £600 wedding shoes and I want a refund

QMy story started in 2020 when I bought a pair of ornate shoes for my wedding. They cost £570, excluding postage and packaging. It was a lot, but I thought I would wear them again.

Before our wedding day the embellishment had already broken. All I had done was wear them a couple of times in the house to break them in before the big day, which was then postponed because of the pandemic. The company agreed to repair them, but this was not the end of my troubles.

Come our actual wedding day last year, I wore the shoes as planned, and another gem fell out. The company repaired the shoes for a second time. I requested a much more robust repair of the broken part and a full redo of the other embellishments to regain my confidence that the shoes would not break again. Again, naively, I thought this would be the end of it.

Come 2022, I decided to wear the shoes again for a friend’s wedding. I thought that, now they had been repaired more robustly, they could not possibly break again. However, I was wrong. Another gem fell out.

I could not believe it. I had paid nearly £600 for a pair of shoes that I had worn six times and they had broken on three of those occasions.

I decided the situation needed to end as my emotions were being drained by the constant repair and rebreak cycle. I told the company how devastated and saddened I was that my dream shoes were again broken. I posted them back and requested a full refund.

When I received a somewhat strongly worded rebuttal to my request, I was very surprised. I was told I was not getting a refund because I had worn the shoes. I was told

the company had a disclaimer that the embellishments were delicate and so damage was possible. This had never been made clear to me.

I found this response wholly unsatisfactory and quite frankly upsetting. To add insult to injury, I posted on my Instagram that friends should not buy these shoes and the company blocked me.

– Anon

A

The shoes in question were blue velvet block heels with ornate gold embellishments running up the heel, featuring delicate metal flowers and clawed clasps containing small crystals. At £570 they were eye-wateringly expensive. But more than just a pair of shoes, they were a work of art into which hours of workmanship had gone. You say you weren’t made aware of the maker’s disclaimer about the shoes being “delicate and prone to damage”, but honestly one look at the shoes should have been enough for you to see how easily they might break. They were obviously designed to be worn on a one-off occasion, when, just like with an embellished wedding dress, minor damage such as gems falling off would be highly probable.

It was quite right that the company repaired them when a gem fell out before your wedding day. And had you requested a refund at this point you would have been perfectly within your rights to do so. But you chose to keep them. Although another gem fell out on your big day, you say none of your guests noticed. The company also agreed to repair them again.

But your breaking point came when a third gem fell out at a friend’s wedding more recently, after which you decided to lambast the company on social media. You were even prepared for me to shame it in a national newspaper because it wouldn’t provide you with a full refund for shoes you had worn six times in two years. I’m sorry to say I don’t think this is entirely fair on this small business, which, as far as I can see, has done nothing wrong.

You very clearly have a strong emotional connection to these shoes and I’m worried it has clouded your judgment over what is really going on here. I think you have a severe case of buyer’s remorse because you spent nearly £600 on a pair of impractical wedding shoes which you now realise were terrible value for money.

You sent me a recent photo of the shoes and, aside from the fallen-out gem (which you still have), to me they still look perfect. Have you looked into having them repaired somewhere locally? I’d suggest someone could probably stick the gem back in for less than a tenner.

You wrote to me in the hope that I could secure you a £570 refund, but instead I’ve provided you with some honest advice: take the shoes for a cheap repair, drop this complaint and focus your energy on being a newlywed. Life is too short to stay angry over a pair of shoes.