Weddingbee Blog

With the recent purchase of my hair flower (which I’ll write about soon!), my wedding day accessories round-up is almost complete! The last item on the list: a bracelet. I’d prefer something with pearls, white gold (or sterling silver), and possibly white Cubic Zirconias, crystals, or rhinestones. Throughout my searches, here’s what I’ve found.

The definition of simple beauty: I found this pearl bracelet below on eBay. It was elegant and inexpensive, too! (Not real, of course, but I don’t care as long as it matches my necklace [which is real] pretty well.)

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This one was a little more interesting with its swirly silver accents: something I could see myself wearing to work or on other occasions.

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This one went a step further and added some rhinestones to the mix:

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And this next one was actually made out of old earrings! I thought it was pretty cool; its halo design somewhat matches my ring (at least, in my head it does!). Mr. Mary Jane wasn’t a fan of this one.

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This next piece was actually part of an old bracelet. It was old and missing a few of the beads, but I still thought it was totally awesome. I could see an intact piece like this selling for hundreds! I have very small wrists, so I was ready to snap up this 7″ strand and add my own clasp. Then I read the description closer and (after a quick email to the seller) found out that it was yellow gold. I have no yellow gold in my wedding day look and I don’t particularly like it in general. Damn!

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This next one was one of my top contenders: another eBay find. Not as attractively priced as that first eBay bracelet, but it also had a lot more going on. I particularly liked the use of marquise-shaped rhinestones in its design. Mr. Mary Jane thought this one was OK, but he wasn’t wowed by it either.

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Another of my favorites was this next one. Mr. Mary Jane liked it too, but again was not wowed.

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But are men ever truly wowed by jewelry? Mine was, by this next one:

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More marquise rhinestones, but not as busy as the eBay marquise-embellished bracelet. I really liked it, but I was a little concerned about the size of those stones. I didn’t want them to be huge (they look pretty big!) and overshadow my beautiful engagement ring! I convo’d the seller, who wrote back within 15 minutes and told me they’re about a half-inch tall. Great! My ring’s about 3/4″ inch.

Can I just take a minute to say how awesome these Etsy people are with answering emails? Most of the sellers I’ve messaged have gotten back to me within an hour! A far cry from eBay, where it’s unlikely the seller will even respond to you before the auction ends.

Anyway, back to the bracelets. If you’ve been clicking on the source links, you surely noticed that the one that best matches my other accessories (which is also the one Mr. MJ likes the most) is also by far the most expensive one in this post. Ugh, this is so me. I hate spending on myself, but I have expensive tastes. What’s a gal to do?

I contemplated placing an alchemy request, but what was I going to say? “Please make me a bracelet pretty much like this one, except sell it to me cheaper?” That’d be so incredibly rude, especially after the seller so promptly and positively answered my question regarding this piece.

So I went back to the ol’ budget. This bracelet is $63, shipped. I’d allotted myself $150 to spend on accessories (hair/shoes/jewelry). With $70 spent, I still had $80 remaining. But did I really want to spend a large chunk of that on a bracelet? I don’t even wear bracelets on a regular basis, and I have no jewelry that costs even half as much as this bracelet (aside from two necklaces I’ve received from relatives and my wedding set). The $8.00 string of pearls from eBay (top of this post) was looking pretty appealing. Hell, I even found one on Amazon for $2.00! Sure it’s pretty cheapie-looking, but who’s going to look that close? I could use the $50 I saved on a nice manicure or maybe (wow, I’m boring) a small area rug for our kitchen. I was definitely suffering from “Can’t Spend On Self” syndrome.

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I tried the “It’s your wedding day! What better reason to spend!” approach, but that didn’t work. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that I couldn’t spend $60 on a bracelet; it was that I couldn’t spend $60 on this bracelet. I couldn’t see myself wearing it in the future, and I wasn’t even sure I could see myself wearing it on my wedding day. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Something was just missing for me.

Back to eBay I went. And back to Etsy. And to Amazon. And to Emitations. You get the picture; I was stumped. It’s hard to find the perfect little something when you’re not sure what you want it to look like! Eventually I realized that I’d set my sights too high. Hadn’t I originally planned on simply going to Claires or J.C. Penney and picking up a nice inexpensive faux pearl strand? And here I was pulling my hair out over custom pieces with lofty price tags. Sigh. Remember what I said about expensive tastes?

Next time, I’ll show you more bracelets I found, and my top three contenders. Will any of these make the cut? You’ll just have to wait and see!

Have you had trouble matching one of your accessories to the rest? How’d you decide?