This will be difficult without seeing my dress…but, unfortunately, I can’t post it. My fiancé follows all of my blogs. Yea, it is sweet of him but not when I want to show you the dress!

Anyway, think: Retro Glam. Marilyn Monroe, Rat Pack, etc. There is some jeweled detail on the dress… I am looking for a large cuff bracelet or several bangle bracelets in a jeweled pattern of squares, rectangles, triangles, ovals, you name it.  For my earrings, same jewels but a drop earring, nothing round or hoop-ish.

This is my jewelry inspiration from Haute Bride:

What fabulous jewelry ideas have you found?

Are you in the market for an engagement ring, wedding band, or other fine jewelry? If you’ll be in NYC on November 5-6 you might want to check out the A. Jaffe Sample Sale!

A. JAFFE SAMPLE SALE

November 5th-6th, 2009
11:00am – 8:00pm

For more information, click on the image above or visit the Michael C. Fina website.

Happy shopping!!!

I know that this post should probably say “The Perfect Wedding Earrings”…but I thought I would keep in tune with my previous post “The Perfect Halloween Venue” and stick with the theme of Halloween.

Last Fall during one of my routine trips to scoop up the latest wedding magazines, I picked up Inside Weddings and came across a wedding that practically fit my vision to a T. The couple’s names were Brandon & Ashley (you can see their photographs on Barnetphotography.com) and Brandon is a member of Atreyu, a band from California, so naturally their wedding had a very edgy and rocker feel to it.

As I was looking through their photos, I found a close up of the bridesmaid’s earrings and knew I had to find them. The only problem was, there was no reference to where they bought them and all of my internet searches were coming up empty. After months of searching, I gave up and decided to find another style of earrings I liked.

Photo by Barnet Photography

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I’m usually not much for tradition, but one that I will be proud to carry on is wearing this heirloom necklace. Women in my dad’s family for at least the last four generations have been wearing this delicate confection of gold, pearls and peridots as part of their wedding finery.

Pearl and peridot necklace

When I went home recently for a wedding shower, my sister-in-law presented me with the necklace. I already had it in mind when I chose my dress (in a post yet to come!) and I am so excited to be able to wear it on my wedding day.

As far as the other parts of the tradition go, my something new will be my dress, and a beautiful blue topaz ring worn by my mother and maternal grandmother will do double duty for my something blue and something borrowed. I am glad that I will have the opportunity to wear jewelry from both sides of my family and in a small way, honor my two late grandmothers.

What family traditions are you carrying on?

Since there will be no processional/recessional or aisle walk at our wedding and I am pretty allergic to most flowers, I decided against having a bouquet. Plus, I want to hold Calla Lily Dude’s hands during the short and sweet ceremony, not a bouquet!

But I would like something that says, “This is a special occasion, look at me, I’m the bride!” so I am thinking about getting a wrist corsage. I just don’t want it to be a bulky “prom” corsage… I would love to have something gorgeous and out of the ordinary.

Photo courtesy of theflowersmith.com

I am looking to have my corsage created using silk flowers to avoid having red, itchy eyes and monster sneeze attacks on my wedding day. (Apparently, I am quite an aggressive sneezer. Calla Lily Dude always asks if I am okay after sneezing because he says it sounds painful… As you can imagine, not a good thing for a bride!)

I am still hunting for a vendor to create my corsage (and hopefully a matching boutonniere for Calla Lily Dude). I am also considering taking this on as a DIY project even though I have never made floral arrangements before. But, then again, I never made jewelry before and that DIY project turned out beautifully!

I am not a very tradition-minded person, but I thought it would be nice if I did incorporate the “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” tradition with a twist.

I made my own wedding jewelry and, I have to tell you, this was a great DIY project to work on! I had never made jewelry before, but I think it turned out lovely. I consider my necklace to be old because the pearls came from a strand of salt-water pearls from my grandma in Hawaii. It’s new because I purchased new beads to go in between the pearls. I “borrowed” the center jewel from a necklace I bought for my best friend’s wedding. Lastly, the crystal drop has a blue sparkle to it (you can’t quite see it in the picture).

I got the jewelry making tools from a craft store and purchased glass beads and fixings (the clasp and wire) from a local beading shop. I also got an inexpensive jewelry making workbook that explained all of the basics at the beading shop, too.

Believe it or not, the total cost of this fun DIY project was less than $15 dollars! Imagine that, $15 of tools and raw materials, 1 hour of time, a touch of creativity and a little deconstructing of two existing pieces of jewelry, and now I have a one-of-a-kind necklace with lots of sentimental value!