The day before her wedding, Amber Dawne Walker perched on the teal velvet couch upstairs at the flagship John Fluevog shoe store in Vancouver, British Columbia, clutching the hand of her fiancé, Ron Amar Dutt. “This is just like my dream,” she said.
Across from the couple, the company founder, John Fluevog, reviewed his notes for the secret wedding ceremony he agreed to lead the next day in front of 250 unwitting guests.
“Sometimes dreams come true,” Mr. Fluevog said.
The couple, who had been dating since January 2023, originally planned to elope in Las Vegas. But one morning in April of that year, Ms. Walker awoke from a dream in which she said she was walking down the stairs in the flagship Fluevog store in the Gastown neighborhood in her wedding dress. Mr. Dutt met her at the bottom of the stairs. She and Mr. Dutt were on a stage in front of hundreds of friendly strangers, all wearing glittering, fantastical footwear.
Ms Walker, 46, and Mr. Dutt, 50, met on Match.com the first week of January 2023. They messaged each other for a few days, then set up a 10 a.m. coffee date on Jan. 21 at the New Westminster farmers market, which was near Ms. Walker’s home in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver.
Ms. Walker had asked a friend to call her at 11 a.m. with a fake emergency, but she didn’t need the save. When Mr. Dutt hugged her hello, Ms. Walker recalled feeling “safe” and “at home” in the embrace.
The coffee date turned into a stroll through an artisan craft fair, then a stop at a doughnut shop, a mall and an early dinner. By the time they said goodbye, the couple had spent seven hours together.
Neither Ms. Walker nor Mr. Dutt had been married before. Mr. Dutt, who is the father of two adult daughters from a previous relationship, wasn’t looking to get married. But when he met Ms. Walker, he said, he soon changed his mind. “I felt the energy as soon as I hugged her,” he said. “Sounds cliché, but she’s the perfect yin to my yang.”
A week later, Ms. Walker and Mr. Dutt tried a sound bath meditation in downtown Vancouver. Mr. Dutt, who fell asleep and started snoring during the session, suggested they visit the John Fluevog flagship store in Gastown afterward. Ms. Walker was surprised that Mr. Dutt was known personally by the sales staff, known as Fluevogologists, who help shoppers find their “solemate.”
After their third date, Mr. Dutt, the lead technician and foreman at Willowbrook Collision, an auto body collision franchise in Langley, about 30 miles outside of Vancouver, revealed to Ms. Walker his closet, which contained 80 mostly blue signature Fluevog shoe boxes.
“They help me better express who I am,” Mr. Dutt said of his shoes. “I love the colors, the funky heels. I can wake up and say, what do I feel like today? I start with the shoes.”
The impressive collection reminded Ms. Walker of her own first Fluevog purchase early in her career at Fasken, a large law firm in British Columbia where she still works as a professional development adviser in the Vancouver office. While she didn’t have a lot of disposable income at the time, she splurged. She told her law firm colleagues who stopped by her cubicle to glance at her feet, “These are my new roommates.” The shoes cost half her rent.
The couple did not list their affinity for the Fluevog shoes on their dating profiles. When they met, Ms. Walker owned three or four pairs. “I love them because they are statement pieces,” she said. “In my corporate job, I used to wear nothing but black. I wear a lot of color now, but still love how Fluevogs are always the focal point. You don’t often see people wearing the exact same ones, but when you do, you immediately have a bond with that person.”
Ms. Walker and Mr. Dutt posted their courtship to the Flummunity Facebook page regularly — date night “shoefies” (selfies of their shoes only) drove their weekly photo narrative — and they achieved a kind of celebrity status.
The Flummunity Fest, an in-person celebration, was started in 2018 by fans of the shoes who take to heart one of the company’s core principle — that all human beings are powerfully creative. Customers from the New Orleans area wanted to socialize at the local store, so Mr. Fluevog surprised them with an impromptu bash, sending food, swag and a welcome video. Every year since, the company has facilitated Flummunity Fests annually in Toronto, Vancouver and Portland, Ore.
At a Flummunity Fest in Toronto in 2023, people Ms. Walker had never met called her name from across the room. Many told her that she and Mr. Dutt changed their lives by sharing their developing romance online. “People said we helped them believe that they too could create the world they wanted to live in,” Ms. Walker said.
Three weeks before the one-year anniversary of their first date, the couple traveled to Isla Mujeres, Mexico, off the coast of Cancun. As the sun rose on Jan. 1, 2024, Mr. Dutt proposed to Ms Walker. “I have never been this happy,” he said. “I want to share my life with you.” Ms. Walker said yes.
“I had been under a pretty dark cloud for three years,” she said. “My mum and oldest brother passed away unexpectedly within a year of each other. I was just numb, going through the motions, and accepted that the sparkle in life was gone.”
She added, “Then I met Ron. He is the most affectionate, thoughtful and supportive man I have ever dated.”
For Ms. Walker, a big wedding was unimaginable after the death of her mother and brother, which was why they initially planned to elope. “The grief was too much,” she said.
Ms. Walker knew the setting of her fateful dream: Flummunity Fest.
The couple planned to attend the weekend October bash in Vancouver, and Mr. Fluevog agreed to allow the couple to add their secret wedding to the agenda.
“The community is so important to them,” Mr. Fluevog said. “To let them get married at this event seemed like a natural thing.”
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Ms. Walker and Mr. Dutt arrived Saturday night, Oct. 19, at the Flummunity Fest Formal, at the store. Amid moody lighting, pop music and dozens of shoes on display, attendees socialized, showed off their outfits and shopped.
A glittering aerialist shimmied up white silks in one corner, and tattoo artists inked 30 guests with original company tattoos. Crowds gathered upstairs for food and selfies, while downstairs lines for the bar spilled toward the front doors, open for ventilation despite the teeming rain.
“It almost reminds me of the punk days or the glam days when everyone dressed up for each other,” said the fashion designer Anna Sui, who in collaboration with Fluevog released limited edition fall/winter ballet flats and butterfly boots at this year’s fest. “They share a whole vocabulary, it’s so joyful.”
Dame Zandra Rhodes, an author and textile designer who collaborated on two Fluevog collections in 2022 and 2023, described the gathering as “beyond fashion. Everyone is so proud to be wearing their shoes, no matter how old the styles, they just rediscover them and they’re suddenly new again.”
Ms. Walker bought a pair of the just-released, limited edition hot pink “Olivia” boots by the musician Olivia Jean in collaboration with Fluevog and wore them with a black dress to the gala. Mr. Dutt wore a custom corset waistcoat with the reusable Fluevog shopping bag woven in. On his feet were periwinkle “Eugenes,” a lace-up boot.
Few knew that Ms. Walker and Mr. Dutt would have their wedding on the final morning of the festival. Unsuspecting guests filed into the Permanent, a 1907 Vancouver landmark previously home to the Bank of Canada.
Mr. Fluevog glided through the doors with his wife, Ruth, and walked up the center aisle. When an acoustic guitarist began to sing “I Get to Love You,” by Ruelle, and Mr. Fluevog stepped on the stage wearing a large silver cross, the crowd gasped. “Yes,” he said, “something magical is about to happen.”
Mr. Dutt, previously cloaked in an oversized black fuzzy coat, revealed his custom-made purple velvet suit and chrome Luciano shoes. The crowd cheered as Ms. Walker emerged wearing a retro-style white lace dress with a sweetheart neckline, a fascinator with a birdcage veil, and this year’s limited edition wedding bootees, Zeniths.
“This is a love fest,” said Mr. Fluevog, who performed a theatrical ceremony, “and what greater love is there than two people joining together?”
After the couple exchanged rings, Mr. Fluevog pronounced them married in the eyes of the community. “We all have a need to be loved and accepted, and that’s where the community comes in.”
Frank Naso, the marriage commissioner appointed by the province of British Columbia, officiated the legal ceremony at noon that day in the flagship store before close friends and family.
“I’ve been waiting 30 years for this,” Mr. Dutt said. “I feel complete.”
“It’s nice to feel some sparkle again,” Ms. Walker added. “Some of that was Ron, but a lot of it was Fluevog.”
On This Day
When Oct. 20, 2024
Where The Permanent, Vancouver, British Columbia
Wedding Eve Before they went to bed, the couple photographed the shoes they would wear the next day, after writing love notes to each other in silver Sharpie on the soles.
The Wedding Morning The bride and groom were careful not to kiss, as they wanted their first kiss that day to be when they were married. The bride’s sister-in-law presented her with something new (a charm bracelet), as well as something old, borrowed and blue (a pendant from her grandmother that was pinned to the inside of her dress).
Wardrobe Malfunction The bride walked down the aisle holding an elegant bouquet of flowers that covered the belt of her dress. When she got to the stage, her friend and hairstylist, Marla Milburn, noticed the belt was still wrapped in protective paper. The bride laughed as her friend quickly removed the wrapping.
Groom Glitch The groom’s wedding band was challenging to get on during the ceremony. The one-of-a-kind band, with white and black raw diamonds, was created in a lost-wax casting process.
The Reception A brunch for 15 guests took place shortly after the legal ceremony at the nearby restaurant Glowbal. Guests were transported by limo and enjoyed, among other things, a mimosa bar.
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