Wedding Blog

I hadn’t even really been looking for wedding jewelry…but sometimes, when you’re NOT looking is when you’ll stumble on something wonderful.

In this case, I was shopping for dahlias to make my hanging jar mock-ups, so I wandered into Willow and Bloom, a floral boutique near my office. Besides amazing flower arrangements, Willow and Bloom sells a variety of delightful gifts, party favors, and jewelry.

What first caught my eye was this beautiful necklace by Seattle jewelry designer Christa Hope:

Christa’s line of custom bridal jewelry perfectly fit all of my requirements for suitably simple yet elegant jewelry: not heavy, not complicated, not cheap-looking, and not gaudy. She makes wonderful things:

After looking at some of Christa’s jewelry, my eye was drawn to a little display mannequin sitting on top of a high shelf. On it was a graceful choker made of a delicate leather cord strung with colorful and shapely Akoya pearls. And I just knew that this was what I had to wear:

How rustic! How elegant! How shabby! How chic! How…now…brown cow?

These lovely pearls found their way to Seattle via Sayulita, Mexico, where they were made by a husband and wife team called “Gypsia Bella.” Willow and Bloom carries many of their necklaces, but for some reason I glossed them over until I saw this very one.

Gypsie Bella necklaces have been featured in Travel & Leisure Magazine and are soon to be featured in Vogue, but they’re hard to find except in choice locations: San Tropez, St. Bart’s, Miami, New York, Sardinia. I had an exceptionally difficult finding ANYTHING about them online except to see one (expensive!) tahitian pearl wrist band featured in a New York Times photo (bottom right, cut off):

Let me tell you, I already love this necklace to death. The length is adjustable, so it can be worn loosely or as a full choker. The leather and lumpy, variable-colored pearls make it quite rustic and not distinctly “bridal,” but it’s still gorgeous and eye-catching. I think it will be a nice addition to my wedding attire. And to think, I was considering skipping a necklace altogether!

I’d mostly been thinking about what earrings to wear, if any. So now, necklace in hand, I’ve begun working with Gypsie Bella (and a local artist as a backup) to create matching four-pearl, leather corded drop earrings. Like so:

Pardon my wacky Photoshop mock-up.

What do you think? What are you wearing for your bridal jewelry?