Wedding Jewellery

The summer just gone one of my staff got married and she asked me to make her wedding jewellery, as well as gifts for the bridesmaids.  We sat together and drew up some ideas and she had a good root through my finished pieces pile so she could get some ideas as well.  She had four bridesmaids, each wearing a different colour of the same dress apart from the head bridesmaid (which was her Gran!).

This is what I made for the bride to match her bouquet.  It's a slightly enlarged Ring Nebula made with Swarovski Indicolite faceted rounds and tiny size 15 beads.

I simply popped it on a silver chain with a silver heart clasp for her.

For the bridesmaids I made simple beaded beads with large Swarovski faceted rounds and the used different colours for the lace overlay.  My exceptional Mum came up with the pattern for this beaded bead and it is completely self-supporting.

Here you can really see the deep ruby overlay.

And this one in teal.

For the Gran maid of honour, she wanted me to make another of the Ring Nebulas as a brooch:

This time I used Light Amethyst Swarovski faceted rounds.

It was wonderful making wedding jewellery and I was so happy to be a small part of making her wedding day be what she wanted it to be.  All of the bridesmaids spoke to me afterwards and said how much they loved their jewellery and one of the girls commissioned me to make a few pieces for her.  Luckily she has quite bold taste so I really was able to let rip for her!

I made this asymmetric double spiral princess length rope with scores of firepolished beads and Swarovski crystals, as well as aventurine and amethyst chips for her.

In this view you can really see the spiral and how the colours peep out of the monochromatic bead soup soup.  It is definitely not a stitch for beginners!  It took quite a few stop and starts for me to get into the flow but once I got the rhythm of the stitch, it grew really fast .

This summer I have been asked by another of my colleagues to make her wedding jewellery.  I can't wait to see what she has in mind!  I'm hoping it'll be something really opulent and over the top! or maybe something refined but quite the statement like this:

This was another piece of wedding jewellery made by my Mum.  She is so delicate in her work and is everything I strive to be.  She is a huge inspiration to me and I hope one day I will be as good as she is.