Iridesse, You May be It!

I've been considering a lot of different options for wedding jewelry: pearls, diamonds, faux, real, purchase, rental, new, heirloom...and nothing. Everything in my price range is all wrong. The pretty stuff is too plain for a bride, and the flashy things are hideously gaudy. Even very expensive diamonds aren't quite right, because a whole necklace of diamonds just seems very hard and cold. I much prefer the warmth and fluidity of freshwater pearls.

In came Iridesse. They're only four years old, and the baby sister of Tiffany & Co. Someone at Tiffany wanted to branch into pearls, and they decided to market a whole new company instead of selling the products in Tiffany stores. I love that they're doing something more interesting with pearls than pendants and strangs. This set in particular caught my eye.

The matching earrings were very short and not quite right, but the salesgirl said she'd try and find these in white gold. I think they're much better! Bear in mind that in real life all of these pieces are quite small and subtle, with a little flash from the diamond cut technique used on the hand woven white gold.