Kate Friedman (better known in the bridal industry as Ellie Wren) is the principal designer and owner of Ellie Wren Custom Wedding Shoes and Design Your Pedestal (an Etsy-exclusive wedding shoe boutique).  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.

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.

My wedding shoes arrived and they are amazing. I believe the actual quote from my fiance was: ‘I don’t know much about women’s fashion, but those are the most beautiful shoes I’ve ever seen.’