Upper Street - Shoe Designing Evening!

Today we thought we would show you a couple of 'behind the scenes' photos from an exciting part of the wedding planning for Fleur's wedding. You may have seen me post about bespoke shoe company Upper Street on the blog before? If not, they are a 'design your own' shoe company, giving you free reign over shoe style, toe shape, heel height, fabrics and colours in order to create your perfect shoe. 

Fleur's bridesmaid's are all lucky enough to be having their very own custom shoes for her big day, so we had a little 'designing party' to come up with the perfect style.

Fleur, Myself (maid of honour) and Alex (one of the bridesmaids) were very excited to welcome the girls from Upper Street in to my home, who arrived laden with shoes and swatches to show us. My living room quickly turned into a makeshift shoe designing studio... Sample shoes for style ideas, 'fit' shoes to get the perfect fit for each of us and hundreds of fabrics swatches in leather, patent, suede, sparkle suede (amazing by the way!), snakeskin and more.

Our main objectives were to create shoes that would go perfectly with the bridesmaid dresses, while ensuring that the bridesmaids would want to wear them again. Fleur also wanted all of the bridesmaids (there are 7!) to wear the same dress and shoes, so we had to take everyone's taste and style into consideration.

All of the bridesmaids not present had sent us designs of what shoes they would like, so our first focus was coming up with a design compromise that would suit everyone.

Upper Street offer the same style shoe in various different heel heights which was great for us as there is an even split in the seven bridesmaids of tallies and shorties, so we decided early on that we needed two different heel heights within the same design, deciding on a 4.5 inch platform for the girls under 5ft4, and a 3 inch non-platform style for the girls over 5ft7.

We finally decided on an open toe, crossover style for the shoes, with a contrasting heel.

This then opened up the choice of fabric. You can almost have anything you can dream up so we could have been there for a few weeks deciding, however it was clear from the outset that with the chosen bridesmaid dress we should stick to something classic working along a similar colour pallette to the dress: either warm bronze, or pinky-nude shades. The group's favourite was the nude patent leather and nude snakeskin. The shades match exactly so we liked the detail the snakeskin panel added, while still remaining subtle enough for a wedding, and 'different' enough to justify it being a bespoke shoe.

And here we have it... the perfect bridesmaid shoes for Fleur's Wedding.

Fleur then decided to add a really cool personal touch - an individual message to each of the bridesmaids that will be inscribed on the inside sole of the shoes. The order has been placed and we can't wait to see the shoes in the 'flesh'! The whole experience was great fun and we would definitely recommend it.

The shoes are a little pricey, starting at £275, but the quality of the materials and the finished shoes really is outstanding, and on a par to designer shoes of a similar price.

What do you think of our choice for Fleur's bridesmaids? What shoe would you design?