How to DIY frugal but fancy wedding shoes with appliques

Guest post by Sarah Kim
DIY frugal but fancy wedding shoes with appliques

The comfort of shoes is always a big deal for me — whether I'm going out to the grocery store for a few items or the club for a long five-six hour night out. With wide feet, finding the perfect pair of shoes that are both comfortable and cute is a trying task so I decided to make my own DIY wedding shoes.

With so many other things to perfect for the wedding, my shoes started to fall to the bottom of the list. Luckily I was at an outlet store when I saw this $40 pair of shoes just out of my reach. I jumped out of line, grabbed the pair, quickly tried it on, and decided that they would do.

My wedding guardian angel and best friend, who had just gotten married a few months before suggested that I spruce my shoes up. I listened to her, and so glad I did, because my DIYed wedding shoes came out looking very pretty in the photos!

So here's what I did to make my (all-together) $50 pair of wedding shoes with appliques…

floral appliques from etsy

I took my boring-but-comfy pair of shoes from Ann Taylor and bought some floral applique from Etsy that would match my dress.

placing the appliques


Then I positioned the appliques on my shoes — seeing exactly where I wanted them to go. Then used a hot glue gun to glue them down.

And that was it!

diy appliqued wedding shoes

I thought they looked a little weird after I was done, but with the dress, and all of the wedding decor, they looked quite perfect…

diy wedding shoes

Now my shoes were both fancy and frugal.

how to diy wedding shoes

What would you glue on YOUR shoes to save you a bit of cash and add a personal touch?

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Comments on How to DIY frugal but fancy wedding shoes with appliques

  1. How much did the applique cost from Etsy? I probably wouldn’t choose that particular one, but the idea of sprucing up less fancy shoes appeals to me.

    • Hi I just wanted to let you know that you can get applique pretty much any stores, even Wal-Mart has a section of ” iron on” flowers appliques but you can glue them on your shoes. Or if you happen to have a lace curtain or lace table cloth you could cut what shapes you like and glue pieces on to your shoes. Hope this helps, good luck!

  2. I’m doing this same thing with white flats and scrap pieces of lace from my dress. In most cases you can ask for the scrap lace during alterations, I’m making my dress so I’ll have plenty of scraps to make matching flats! 🙂

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