Ellie Wren
What's in a Name: The Story Behind Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes
Kate Friedman (better known in the bridal industry as Ellie Wren) is the principal designer and owner of Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes. She has been designing women's shoes since 2007. Ellie's wedding shoe designs are uncommon in that her specialty is working one on one with her clients to understand what makes them, and their significant others, unique. A firm believer that custom wedding shoes are a opportunity to capture the essence of the couple, Ellie then incorporates what she learns into the bride's wedding shoes.
Ellie shoes have been walking down aisles the world over and, in addition to her collection of lovely lace-covered wedges and Swarovski-studded peep toes, Ellie has done some pretty amazing custom work, including the "Cloud Shoes" that she designed for Good Morning America's anchor meteorologist, Ginger Zee's 2014 wedding to Ben Aaron. Other unique wedding shoe designs include her trademark baseball wedding shoes, originally designed for Yankee Stadium nuptials that have since been recreated for the coupling of Colorado Rockies', St. Louis Cardinals', Detroit Tigers', Boston Red Sox' and Chicago Cubs' fans. She even has a pair of "rock climbing" and "pilot meets flight attendant" wedding shoes under her belt.
[gallery columns="4" ids="81,80,79,78"]
While a shoe lover and style devotee by birth, Ellie (then better known as Kate Friedman) didn't have the guts to pursue her passion until after four years of a traditional college education, followed by three years of law school and eight years of law practice (good for business development, bad for creativity), but she maintains that everything happens for a reason and she is now (finally!) happily and exactly where she is supposed to be in her career.
Ellie lives in the beautiful state of Colorado, where she enjoys the outdoors and the 300 days of sunshine with her husband and two children.
About Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes…
Ellie Wren’s unique wedding shoe styles have been walking down the aisles since 2011 as part of her other company, Design Your Pedestal. Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes works one on one with each of its brides to create their dream wedding shoes. Brides are welcome to send pictures of their dress, their flowers, their bridesmaids dress and share stories about their dream wedding day, how they met their fiance or just what makes the betrothed couple special to inspire Ellie Wren’s team of artists in the design of the bride’s wedding shoes. To learn more about designing your own wedding shoes, visit the Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes website.
So...How Does This Custom Wedding Shoe Thing Work?
Nary a day will pass when a bride doesn't email us asking for more information about how the custom wedding shoe design process works. It's a subject near and dear to our hearts, as we work every day to create truly original, stunning custom wedding shoes, designed to capture the essence of the bride, her partner and her wedding day in this truly fun accent piece. If ever someone paid us a compliment, it was that we are authentic in what we do. It's a threshold that we strive to achieve with each pair... and here's how it happens!
Step 1: Telling Us A Little About Your Wedding Style
Brides usually initiate the custom wedding shoe design process by sending us request through our Custom Wedding Shoe Design Tool. Brides are walked through a 4-step process during which they tell us what they like for a base shoe style, a color palette, a selection of adornment options and a quick questionnaire about their shoe size, wedding theme and any other details about their wedding day that they'd like to share. Often, brides like to also send us pictures of their dress, their bridesmaids' dresses and their flowers to give us a sense of their wedding style.
[caption id="attachment_56" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Choosing Your Base Shoe Style[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_53" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Choosing Your Colors[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_57" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Selecting Adornment Options[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_58" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Tell Us About Your Wedding[/caption]
Step 2: Working With Your Personal Custom Wedding Shoe Designer
We're a small studio based in Denver, but among this group of artists is a huge resource for creative problem solving and an eye for design. That's the long way of telling you that if you can imagine it, we can probably do it. After your initial request is received, a member of our design team will reach out to you via email to sort through your selections and help you start to put together the design for your shoes. If you're trying to incorporate a special theme, let us know! Want your shoes to tie in with your dress? We can do that too!
[caption id="attachment_52" align="aligncenter" width="432"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Matching the Dress[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_59" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Incorporating Your Wedding Theme[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_60" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Incorporating a Special Element[/caption]
As you're discussing your design ideas with your designer, they'll be able to send you photos of ideas and options. For brides that really want to be able to visualize their final design, we can send you sample swatches of the materials that we will use and even create a sketch of the final design.
Step 3: Ensuring the Perfect Fit (Optional)
Custom wedding shoes are a bit of a splurge for sure! When you're putting that much time, energy and money into your wedding attire, you want to make sure that the shoe fits! To accommodate this need, we do offer a "Try Before You Buy" program. You can read more about how that works in our recent blog post here.
Step 4: Putting It All Together!
Once you have a finalized design with your custom wedding shoe designer, you'll receive an invoice with all of the specifications via Paypal. Because of the custom nature of your wedding shoes, we do request payment upfront. Generally, the process will take anywhere from 4-8 weeks. Your custom wedding shoe designer will be able to give you an accurate timeline when you order your shoes. And, of course, if you have a fast-approaching fitting or (yikes!) wedding date, we can work with you on those as well.
Each of our designs are handmade by our designers here in the studio. While we start with a pre-made base shoe, every crystal, pearl and sequin is hand placed with care. We make every flower and paint every sole. It's this degree of artistry that enables us to make the perfect custom wedding shoe for your wedding day.
[caption id="attachment_50" align="aligncenter" width="432"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Placing Pearl Buttons on a Wedding Shoe[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_49" align="aligncenter" width="432"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Lacing a Shoe[/caption]
Step 5: Reviewing Your Shoes
Before your shoes ship, we'll take pictures of them from a couple of angles so that can see what they look like before they ship. While we're not able to make major changes at this point, we can make minor ones (you'd like a few more Swarovski crystals scattered in the lace or your changed your mind about adding a message to the soles -- all doable)!
[caption id="attachment_61" align="aligncenter" width="440"] The Final Approval: Reviewing Your Wedding Shoes Before Shipping[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_63" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Save the Date with a Special Message on the Soles[/caption]
Step 6: Accessories!
While you don't have to, wouldn't it be grand to have your shoes, your sash and maybe a few little accent pieces for your updo to match your shoes? We can do all of that as well!!
[caption id="attachment_64" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Custom Wedding Shoes: Pull It All Together With Complementing Accessories![/caption]
About Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes…
Ellie Wren’s unique wedding shoe styles have been walking down the aisles since 2011 as part of her other company, Design Your Pedestal. Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes works one on one with each of its brides to create their dream wedding shoes. Brides are welcome to send pictures of their dress, their flowers, their bridesmaids dress and share stories about their dream wedding day, how they met their fiance or just what makes the betrothed couple special to inspire Ellie Wren’s team of artists in the design of the bride’s wedding shoes. To learn more about designing your own wedding shoes, visit the Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes website.