Accessorize!

I've shared with you my dress, my boots, my rings and garter...now for the rest of my wedding day accessories. Earrings are an everyday staple for me, necklaces and bracelets are worn almost as often so wedding day accessories were a must.

I started with my necklace, I knew I wanted something big and bold, statement making. I couldn't add anything until I had the necklace. I found loads of inspiration but by far my favorite is this picture:

Image via Style Me Pretty/Photo by Alders Photography

The best part? This gorgeous bride made the gorgeous necklace and provided the tutorial here. I set out to make the necklace, but I'm sorry to announce this is not another DIY post by Miss Honey. Each time I went to Hobby Lobby to search for pretty pearls, I got overwhelmed and gave up. Still though, the bold pearls were what I was dreaming of. The day Mama Honey and I went shopping for her dresses, we happened to pass the jewelry counter and there it was, the perfect wedding day necklace! I tried it on and pulled my debit card out before I even took it off.

Okay it was almost perfect, it just needed to be altered a little bit. One of my dear friends, H, makes jewelry and I knew I could commission her for help on how to make it just perfect. Here's the original necklace:

The part of the necklace that stole my heart is the more chunkier strands, not the longer hanging strands. It was just a little too much with longer strands, and H reassured me that it would be super simple to alter.


A clutter of pearls

I gave H the necklace and a couple days later, she had it back to me...now it was the perfect necklace! Bold, chunky pearls...my Wedding Day Necklace:

It looks much less cluttered without the long strands:

Maybe you are wondering what happened to those extra strands of pearls? Well, H made me a beautiful bracelet out of the extras and gifted it to me at my bridal shower last weekend! I knew she was creating something, I just didn't know what. I love that the pearls are recycled from the original necklace and that the sizes of the pearls vary just like the necklace. The bling is just right and the magnetic clasp is just brilliant. 

Wedding Day Bracelet:

I have a weird thing about wearing too much of a dangly earring when I'm already wearing a necklace, but on the other hand pearl studs would just be too simple. It's kind of hard to tell in the pictures, but the color of the chain on my necklace is gunmetal gray, a pretty dark color. I wanted something in that color of metal, but not something that would distract from my necklace. In Target, I happened across a pair of sparkly, gunmetal gray earrings and snatched 'em right up.

Wedding Day Earrings:

They are like mini disco balls so it was difficult to get a good picture

I've never shared with the Hive that I won't be wearing a veil, so obviously I needed something to make my hair more wedding-y. I could have made another fabric flower, but I felt like I had that style covered between my garter and my dress. When I was at Maurice's buying a new cardigan for my rehearsal dinner outfit, this pretty little flower was just calling out to me. Wedding Day Hair Flower:  

That's all of the piece, Hive! Did you notice how I 'stumbled' upon all of my pieces? Every single one was found when I wasn't looking, isn't that it way it always goes? I'm sure if I set out to find the perfect hairpiece or earrings, I would have come home empty handed. I love all the accessories together and can't wait to have my girls adorn me come W-Day!

Necklace: $60 from Dillard's

Bracelet: Recycled from necklace

Earrings: $8 from Target

Hair Piece: $8 from Maurice's

A total of $78 for accessories

One final piece I'm keeping an eye out for is a clutch. I haven't had any luck at any of the stores I've visited but I'm not giving up hope, I'm sure I will stumble upon something :)

Did your wedding day pieces fall into place or were you more of an accessory searcher?

Something Old, Something New

This is a story of diamonds; the old, the new and the newer.
My "Something Old" came to me six years ago in the form of the most spectacular ring I've ever laid my eyes on. It's a piece of jewelery that I've always oogled over, and something that brings back very fond memories of two incredibly special women in my life: my great-grandma and my grandma, so affectionately called Big Nana and Little Nana.

My Little Papa, Big Nana's husband (are you following?), gave her a ring for an anniversary gift a very long time ago. We are thinking the 40's sometime. Because they were so poor when they got married in the 20's, he couldn't provide her with a diamond ring, but more than made up for that 20 years later. I remember the ring on my Big Nana's finger when I was younger, the light would hit the diamonds and easily catch any one's attention. My Big Nana passed away when I was in high school and it was naturally passed down to her daughter, my Little Nana.

Little Nana was a fan of jewelery and her husband, my Papa, spoiled her with ruby's and diamonds. Little Nana wore her mother's ring on special occasions; Christmas, Thanksgiving, weddings. I knew the holiday's and events she would put it on and always made sure to let her know I recognized that she was wearing it, and we'd mention Big Nana. My Little Nana got very sick in 2005, and while I was visiting her one day she passed me something heavy and when I un-cupped my hand, my heart skipped a beat, my eyes swelled and my jaw dropped. This is what I was suddenly in possession of:

My Little Nana just passed down an incredible family heirloom and made sure to mention that my Big Nana wanted me to have it. I tucked the ring away and made it a home in a special jewelry box and planned on sporting it for special occasions, like my Nana. She didn't like that, she requested I wear it every day and appreciate where it came from. "Think of both of us when you wear it", she said. I listened, just as a good granddaughter should, and pulled it from the jewelery box and started wearing it. It was big at first, and I felt flashy. Of course after awhile, I got used to it and my hand began to feel naked when I wouldn't wear it. My Nana passed away shortly after but I wore the ring every day on my middle finger for five years. Then I got engaged, and Mr. Honey bought me a new diamond ring, one that was just as special, but in a different way. Suddenly I had a massive amount of diamonds on my fingers, and I chose to wear Mr. Honey's on a regular basis. I never thought I would be saying this, but, it's just a lot of diamonds!

When Mr. Honey proposed he picked out a perfect ring, and I love that he picked it out all by himself. A couple weeks ago we went to order my wedding band (I'm fully aware of how close it is to our wedding, we procrastinated hugely) and I tried on a gajillion bands and didn't like a single one. If you remember my ring is set in a square setting and apparently Kay didn't make a band that was intended for the engagement ring. Crazy? I think so. There we sat, band after band, and suddenly Mr. Honey spotted a ring that he liked and casually said "Why don't you just get a whole new ring with a matching band?". The ring consultant then informed us of the "Diamond Trade Up" program where we can trade in my original engagement ring for one of a higher value. There's some math involved but I won't bore you with that. Ultimately, Mr. Honey felt that I should have a ring AND a band that I loved. I adore that man and his impulsive purchases. So, I got a whole new engagement ring and a wedding band that matched. Mr. Honey actually says he likes the new set even better than the one he picked, and I have to agree. Here's my newer "Something New" with it's accompanying wedding band:

I fully intended on using my original engagement ring as my "Something New" but now I've got something Newer that will take its place. This finally brings me to my wedding day. My Nana's (plural) ring will be with me on my wedding day, I just don't know how. My first instinct is on my bouquet, but I've got my Honey charm and the Bee's that will be on my bouquet and I don't think the ring meshes with those two things. My other thought is to wear the ring on my right hand, that way it will be more visible. But, while my engagement ring mimics an antique setting, the family ring is actually an antique setting and I don't feel like they go together.

 

Any other ideas on how to showcase my family ring? What is your "Something Old"?

She Said Yes: The Second Part

When I left off, we successfully took the sailboat down and kept my bling hidden from my best friend. The drive home was surreal as I sat there and stared at my left hand ring finger. My parents and I are very close and it was always important to me that my parents knew of the impending proposal. Mr. Honey did good and spoke to them before popping the question, so when I called to tell them they were giddy with anticipation. Of course were thrilled...and cried tears of happiness.

Celebration was in clearly in order. We rode our cruisers downtown to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. We splurged and got seafood and Prickly Pear Margaritas. I positioned my hand each time the waiter would come to our table to attempt to blind him with my new sparkly:

Mr. Honey picked out my ring by himself, the only thing that ever came up was that I adored a 'cushion cut'. I don't even know if that's a technical term, but I saw a ring on Tiffany's once and I knew that's what I wanted. I love the shape of the ring and that it has an antique flare.

After dinner, we stopped at the liquor store and got the finest yummiest sounding Champagne we could find...we got home to our backyard, popped the cork, and watched the sunset with our four fur babies.

{Our first picture of an engaged couple!}

Sailboats, actually watercraft in general, tend to be named. You know the creative names you see plastered all over the sides of fancy schmancy boats. We have had many conversations about what to name ours and finally it came to us: She Said Yes. Our engagement will be forever memorialized on the side of our boat. Perfect.

How did you celebrate your engagement? More importantly, who else celebrated with the finest bottle of $18 champagne?!