Every bride wants to wear beautiful shoes on their wedding day. Unfortunately, beautiful shoes often come with a price — namely aching feet.

No bride wants to hobble down the aisle on her big day. Here are 5 steps to keep your feet comfortable on your wedding day:

1. Buy quality shoes. A pair of well-made shoes will provide greater support for your feet than a pair of poorly made shoes. This does not mean that quality shoes can’t be painful. A pair of designer five-inch stilettos tend to be uncomfortable to wear, no matter the price. If your quality wedding shoes are still likely to cause discomfort, you should purchase additional shoe support.

2. Add your own cushioning! Shoe support can mean the difference between hobbling off the dance floor at the wedding reception and being the first person in line for the electric slide. Make shoe cushions your best friends, and you can transform any pair into comfortable wedding shoes! Gel insoles and heel pads easily slip into your wedding shoes. Shoe cushions can help support your arches and prevent painful discomfort. They can also improve the fit of your shoes: Insert a pad at the ball of your foot or stick a heel pad at the back, and your shoe will become comfortably snug. No more popping out of that pump!

3. Break in your shoes. Your next step in the war on wedding day shoe discomfort should be to break in your new shoes. Grab some rubbing alcohol, a spray bottle and a pair of socks. Fill the spray bottle with rubbing alcohol and spray a small amount of the alcohol into your shoes. Next, put on the socks and step into your shoes. Walk around your living room in your wedding shoes. The alcohol will help ease the stiffness of the shoe and allow the shoe to adhere to the shape of your feet. If you are fearful that rubbing alcohol might damage the fabric of your shoes, purchase a shoe stretcher. Shoe stretchers are an inexpensive way to stretch your shoes out. Whatever method you chose, you should purchase your wedding shoes at least a month in advance and wear the shoes around your home for at least an hour a day prior to the wedding date.

4. Pack a kit for your wedding day. On your big day, in addition to something borrowed and something blue, you should have blister pads and Vaseline on hand. If your shoes feel tight, rub a tiny amount of Vaseline on your heels and along the sides of your feet to help ease friction caused by the shoe rubbing against your skin. If you feel blisters begin to form before the ceremony, put a blister pad on the area of your foot where the blister has started to form. This will stop the blister before it becomes painful.

5. Have a comfy second pair! Finally, make sure you have a comfy pair of shoes to change into when the heels become too much. The perfect choice is a pair of wedge flip fl0ps: You want them to be the same height as your original shoes, because that’s the height your dress is hemmed to accommodate, but they need to be comfy above all. Make sure the height of your second pair is the same, or very similar, to your original pair. No one will even have to know that you’ve ditched your designer heels for a pair of flip flops!