Vegan Weddings – Then there are the shoes. VeganMoFo

I’m getting a bit burnt out about weddings lately, I’ll admit it. Our wedding is less than a month away, and it feels like the final countdown music is playing. All urgency I had been feeling is gone, and I’m in this strange stage of acceptance and shrugging. Maybe this is a good thing.

Continuing on in the series on Vegan Weddings for Vegan MoFo let’s talk about the shoes!

Update: click here to read about our wedding day, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the lovely.

But recently something wonderful brightened my day. I got tagged in a photo on instagram. And it was a pair of shoes. A beautiful purple pair of vegan, eco-friendly, fair-labour shoes made by Nicora Johns. These are the shoes I’m planning on wearing when I get married, and while they’ve just been made, I love them already and can’t wait to stick them on my feet.

I emailed Stephanie (Nicora) shortly after the kickstarter campaign finished and asked if I could still order shoes… yes, I’m a last minute kind of girl and wasn’t sure if they would even be able to make shoes for me in time, but felt like the risk was worth it. It seemed I had emailed at the perfect moment… it was a day or two before they were starting their first run of shoes. Phew.

The experience contacting them was incredibly positive, and while I know it’s only the beginning for them, it felt really nice to actually have someone reply to my emails and even follow up. I hope they keep being awesome.

That said, the hardest thing to find for me was shoes. And I’m not really a shoe girl, but for some reason, I took this search seriously. My shoes had to be something other than white, with a mid heel, made of non-animal products, and preferably purple. A glorious purple that for whatever reason I couldn’t find in all my searching. I’m sure if I was less obsessed with purple, it wouldn’t be so much of a big  deal, but c’est la vie.

JC had similar trouble finding shoes for himself. While women have quite a few vegan shoe options, men still seem to lag behind on that front at least in terms of traditional dress shoes, but Nice Shoes in British Columbia offered some nice dressy vegan shoe options from Novacas and Vegetarian Shoes.

Why Wouldn’t Shoes Be Vegan?

Some of the usual suspects:

• Leather
• Suede
• Snake skin (more common than I ever would have expected)
• Silk/satin fabric
• The glue
• The labour practices
• And more.

A great little video from MNN with an article on Vegan Options for your Wedding Shoes

Here are just a few options for vegan friendly wedding shoes:

Beyond Skin – Bridal Collection – UK

Beyond Skin has a variety of lovely shoes, and not just limited to white, silver, or gold. They are based out of the UK, and the shoes are made in Spain. Learn more about the bridal collection by clicking the image above, learn more about Beyond Skin origins and philosophy.

Nice Shoes – Canada

I’ve had a wonderful time ordering and interacting with the folks at Nice Shoes. They are based out of British Columbia, but get their shoes from all over the world. JC ordered his shoes from them. For more information

Milk & Honey (not exclusively vegan) – USA

My favourite part about Milk & Honey is you can customize your shoe almost entirely, they have a variety of vegan friendly materials, (I admit however that I do not know what the sole is made out of.) The shoe creator website is actually really fun to play with and user friendly – you can check it out here. They are not an exclusively vegan company.

Olsen Haus – USA

Olsenhaus was founded in New York City, and has a variety of colourful lively options for shoes, some might work for a wedding as well.

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Also worth checking out: Ethical Bride‘s pinterest board for Vegan Wedding Shoes. Truly an admirable collection of possibilities.

Another source of information is Rose Pedals Vegan Weddings list of Vegan Wedding Shoes for Men & Women.

What are your favourite vegan shoe companies/designers?