Vintage Style Wedding Shoes

The details can make or break an outfit; your accessories, your hair and your shoes can all help create the perfect impact or they can ruin it. When choosing the shoes that will go with your wedding dress, it’s important to ensure that it isn’t just the colour that matches. For those with a vintage wedding dress, or those who just prefer the older style shoes, vintage style wedding shoes are a must have.

Firstly, it should be noted that vintage wedding shoes and vintage style wedding shoes are not the same thing. The first are shoes that date back several decades and the second are modern shoes designed to give an older, more dated, feel to the shoe and will have been tweaked and updated to appeal more to a modern audience.

Secondly, when looking for the perfect pair of vintage wedding shoes keep two very important facts firmly in mind: any shoe can be a wedding shoe and shoes can be dyed. Depending on the style of your dress, your personal tastes and the environment you’re getting married in, any pair of shoe that you fall in love with can be your wedding shoe. This opens up your options and helps reduce the price because suddenly you don’t need to pay a premium just because it’s a ‘wedding’ shoe. Vintage style shoes are available in many styles so spend time searching for the perfect pair. And should you find the perfect pair but not in the colour you want then remember that any fabric, silk or satin shoe can be dyed darker or coloured for a small cost (but not lighter).

A simple google search will bring up vintage style wedding shoes, but when you look at the actual shoe, how vintage are they really? Shoes through the decades, much like clothes, have changed dramatically. Did you know that platforms were in fashion back in the 40’s? Peep toes, pale colours, ankle strap, no ankle strap. The 40’s had some truly gorgeous shoes, so much so that Clarks reproduced some of their 1940’s range for a limited period.

The 1950’s saw the shoe becoming more pointed at the toe with thinner heels. With more choices in textiles (and plastics) available to manufacturers the 50’s had some seriously rockin’ shoes. Lucite was a big thing and your shoes could look like glass slippers covered in rhinestones. For a modern take on a 50’s shoe, shoe clips can pretty-up a plainer shoe, adding a splash of colour or sparkle to the front or heel.

Whatever the style or decade you’re looking for, vintage wedding shoes will have been there and done that, search etsy for shoes, folksy and dwanda for shoe clips and accessories. And the best thing is they’re so pretty, they don’t have to stay in the box on top of the wardrobe after your wedding.