Wedding Wednesday: I Got My Wedding Jewelry!

Guess what? Chicken butt!!! Haaaaaa – that takes me back…

No, really. Guess what? I GOT MY WEDDING JEWELRY! Yay! Wanna see it?

And with the dress:

Don’t you love it? It was designed and made especially for me by my childhood bestie, Aimee. Here she is serenading me on my little brother’s ukulele with a song from the movie version of “Grease!” Multi-talented, y’all. Multi. Talented.

Here’s how it all went down. Aimee is teaching school in Thailand and will not be able to attend either of my weddings. We were both super bummed about that but she came up with a brilliant way to share my day with me – she’d make my wedding jewelry! I happily accepted and began pinning inspiration for her immediately (plus, I asked y'all for help narrowing down the look that I really loved).

At Christmas, I schlepped all fifteen pounds of my wedding dress up to Alaska and we got together at JoAnn’s to select the beads. I showed her the gorgeous ocean colors that I was leaning toward (decided to stick with those since I wanted to be able to wear the jewelry after my wedding and those colors coordinate with most of my wardrobe) and she picked out a collection that she thought I’d love. After laying them all out (in a pile on top of my wedding dress – sorry fellow JoAnn’s shoppers trying to use the patterns table!) we elected to go with a chunky look and narrowed down the beads to the ones that would work best. We agreed to meet up again after Christmas and do a look-see then.

And this is what she showed me – a divine necklace and matching stackable bracelets (plus some earrings to complete the look post-wedding):

Aimee designed the jewelry herself and then finished everything off once we had determined that it all look amazing and fit properly. I FREAKING LOVE IT! And the best surprise? She included some beads that she had picked up in Ireland + some coins from West Africa (how cool is her teaching French and English all over the world gig?). Love. Love. LOVE.

So how about it Tulle Nation, would have your friend design and create your wedding jewelry as a gift? Or have you already decided to do it? Success stories? Scary fails? Do share!