JEWELRY!!

Just wanted to share some quick news before launching into Wedding Planning City: Jordan and I are now officially moved into our AWESOME new apartment! It's just across town from our old apartment, but it feels like the two places are worlds apart! We have working AC, better neighbors, more space, and a washer, dryer, and dishwasher, yay!

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Okay, so besides being a ridiculously difficult word to type correctly, jewelry is one of my favorite things in the world. Fortunately for Jordan's wallet, I'm usually attached to inexpensive, plastic, funky colored jewelry rather than diamonds and gemstones, though I do have my weaknesses.

Being that I love jewelry so much, you would think that deciding on my bridal jewelry would be a piece of cake, but I've discovered that narrowing down my choices is harder than the hardest diamond on earth. *le sigh*

I have come to a few general decisions: 1) I want my bridesmaids to wear turquoise to match their dresses and possibly pearls to match their bouquet purses. 2) I want to wear some combination of pearls, diamonds, and turquoise. 3) I will have one piece of jewelry that reflects my personality and typical jewelry tastes. And 4) None of these materials have to be real, except for the metals. That is, I don't mind substituting glass beads for real turquoise, fake pearls for freshwater pearls, and cubic zirconia for diamonds, but I have to have either sterling silver or white gold. Oh yeah, and I might as well throw in 5) I don't want to spend a ton of money on my jewelry.

I can't say it hasn't been fun surfing the internet for ideas, and here are the results of two days worth of searching:

First of all, I love simple bridal tiaras, with just pearls and diamonds:

Because of the neckline of my dress, as well as the halter straps, I want my necklace to be fairly simple, so as to not to detract from the many details of the top of my dress. Also, because my hairstyle will also be pretty fancy, I want my earrings to match the simplicity of the necklace. Alas, this is where I am most indecisive about what exactly I want. Some ideas:

Earrings to the left, necklace to the right:

Two different sets I like:

Next up is my bracelet. Not a necessary part of bridal jewelry, but this is the piece I am going to use to show off my personality. I know I want it to be made up of pearls and/or turquoise, and I want it to be chunky and bold. But there are so many options!

For the bridesmaids, I have found these pieces that I love:





















Also, this is a set at David's Bridal that I love. It comes in the color Pool, which would match their dresses exactly:

And let's not forget the rings! This is the easiest part of all my jewelry decisions. I know exactly what I want, and Jordan mostly knows what he wants. Mine will be white gold with inset diamonds, and he wants titanium with very little fancy stuff on it. Our wedding bands will be pretty much exactly like these:

As a little sidenote, we are going to get our wedding bands engraved as well. We are thinking about having the phrase "Less Than Three" engraved because when we first started dating, we were in a long-distance relationship for several months and we chatted a lot on AIM. We started using <3 a lot and it just kinda stuck!

So that's where I stand on jewelry for the big day. Rather indecisive and in need of a lot of suggestions/ideas/advice. Feel free to offer it! :)