Designing and making jewelry has been a particular passion of mine since I was but a young girl stringing seed beads to monofilament line and weaving friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss.  Since then, I’d like to say my designs have become a little more elaborate.

First, the inspiration for some of my more recent projects:

From left to right:  Marni and Louis Vuitton, two of my favorite design houses.  I love me some Consuela Castiglioni and Marc Jacobs.

And here is my take on them:

So it was natural that I wanted to dream up an amazing necklace for my dress–not nearly as elaborate as either of these, but enough to give my very simple dress a little touch of sparkle.  So I hied my way down to South Norwalk to visit Beadworks, and purchased for the very reasonable price of $35 this strand of tanzanite, which plays into my color scheme but isn’t nearly as expensive as sapphire:

But I wasn’t satisfied with just the tanzanite, I suppose, because a few months later trawling consignment shops for amazing deals on clothes in Greenwich, I stumbled across a little bead store called Femmegems that I of course had to visit, and left with a longer strand of iolite chips.  The iolite rounds I later bought when revisiting Beadworks.

So now, armed with all of these stones and enough chain to play around with (I have about 3 yards total, I think), I now have to set about the process of actually creating this necklace.  So I’ve started some sketches, keeping the halter neckline of my dress in mind (note:  I’m not the world’s best sketcher.  Usually I tend to wing it):

Yes, I know that “technically” necklaces shouldn’t be paired with halter necklines, but despite loving to design jewelry, I don’t wear much beyond necklaces and occassionally bracelets.  So I’d much rather preserve my personal style than follow some arbitrary rule.  The design itself I think I have set–two strands spaced out, floating around the collarbone.  I have a few options in clustering (or not) the stones–this is what I need help with.

Which leads me to ask:  of the options presented, which one(s) (if any) do you like?

Way back when, long before any thoughts of weddings entered my head, I was reading my October 2005 issue of Vogue, specifically chronicling the weddings of three “superbrides,” i.e. contributors to the magazine or their wealthy friends who appear in the society section who will undoubtedly throw massive, expensive celebrations.  My favorite to read about was Plum Sykes, as she chronicled little aspects of her upcoming nuptials in her monthly column from time to time, including a delightful retelling of buying her honeymoon lingerie in France (but that, to paraphrase Alton Brown, is another post).

She wore an amazing dress by her friend Alexander McQueen, and opted out of wearing  a veil or a tiara.  When asked why, she gave this answer:

“It was all too much. I tried on a tiara, and I looked like Courtney Love. A tiara on a 35-year-old woman is wrong.”

While I am not 35, I can’t help but share her sentiments.  Maybe it’s due to all of the princess marketing out there these days, or perhaps seeing one too many on My Super Sweet Sixteen (and really, only seeing one is one too many), the tiara has adopted a patina of, well, commonality in my eyes.  And after doing a little Google search on tiaras for this post, I see edicts such as “If you don’t wear a tiara, how will anyone know YOU ARE THE BRIDE at the reception???“

It’s statements like these that justify my reluctance to this whole debacle in the first place.

Needless to say, looking at pictures from Ms. Syke’s wedding, going tiara-less did not make her look any less “the bride.”  I’m going tiara-less as well, and I’m fairly certain it won’t make me any less of one either.

I will say this:  Natalie Portman did wear a gorgeous one to the Oscars a few years ago, but I’m more inclined to call this a fancy headband than an actual tiara:

                                 (photo from style.com)

To anyone out there who DID wear a tiara, what prompted you?  What did it look like?