Wedding Blog

Okay, are you ready for the big reveal? *cue drum roll*

For my bridal earrings I chose the lovely gold and pink bow earrings for the amazingly low price of $13 plus $3.50 shipping and handling! (Can you tell I’m channeling my inner Billy Mays? Man, I’m gonna miss that guy.) Aren’t they beauts?

I could have easily picked any of the choices in my previous post because they are all so beautiful. But it was ultimately the price tag and Mr. Lab’s approval that did it for me. (I had him pick his favorite before telling him my fave—we both picked these!) I think they’ll also complement my dress and whatever pink shoes I end up with, perfectly. My bridal “look” is coming along quite nicely but is missing a little something. Perhaps a dainty bracelet to match the earrings?

Warning: Sensitive information coming up. So if you go by the WB moniker of Mr. Lab, stop scrolling now. I mean it!

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I love the romantic and vintage look of cameos. And this bracelet fits perfectly into the bridal color scheme! But oy! Again with the price! $278?!? No thank you. Back to combing the interwebs for an affordable cameo bracelet….

Wait, what’s that you got there eBay? Oh, a cameo bracelet just as charming for a fraction of the price? I see how you do!

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So for less than $25, I will have wrapped up my bridal jewelry for the big day. Yes, I am a full-fledged bargainista.

In honor of these great new finds (and my obvious new obsession with Picasa’s collage feature), I created a “bridal look book” inspiration board:

*TA-DA!*

This board features: My earrings and bracelet and the shoes I covet. My hair and makeup inspirations. My dream dress and a gorgeous fascinator. And an adorable clutch and lush bridal bouquet*.

And no, I haven’t forgotten my bridesmaids! For them I chose the pink topaz and Swarovski crystal earrings.

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Although these are $39 a pop, I couldn’t help but fall in love. They would match the bridesmaids’ dresses so perfectly! So I crossed my fingers and contacted the seller in hopes of finding a way to negotiate the price. After a few messages back and forth, she offered to replace the pink topaz with pink quartz and give me a 12% discount because of the larger order. That brings the total down to $22.88 for each pair. Still a bit more than I was looking to spend, but definitely doable for such gorgeous pieces that I will be gifting to my fabulous girls. I may even see if my MOH’s MIL (holy acronyms!) could replicate these for me since she’s somewhat of a jewelry extraordinaire. Anyhoo, the moral of my Etsy story: never hesitate to negotiate price with ANYthing on Etsy. I saved a ton on my save the dates by negotiating.

And so the bridesmaids aren’t left out of the inspiration board fun, I created this:

Their dresses will have a skirt closer to the chocolate color swatch shown. And I just decided today that I will be making their (fake) bouquets using dahlias, ranunculus, peonies, and possibly hydrangeas, all in a monochromatic pink tone. The girls will wear whatever shoes they like since no one will see them anyways. Now I just need to decide whether or not I want them to have necklaces to go along with the earrings, or just go with bare decolletages.

*Yes, I’m changing my bouquet color! You shall hear more about this soon enough!