Bling N' Things Sale

The ECU Metals guild will be putting on its 1st annual Bling N' Things jewelry sale at Wright plaza, right in front of Dowdy on campus October 24th-25th!

Our sale committee has done a great job organizing this event (big thanks to Ellen Hinrichs, Samantha Clarke, Ashley Ray, and Kate Lambeth).

 This will also be our first go with taking credit cards! Yes, that now means you have no excuse to support the arts and growing guild on campus. Atleast stop by and say hello, steal a few business cards and take a peak at all of the fabulous jewelry

The sale will be from 9-2 ...more details below on our fabulous poster (lovin' our graphic design by Erin Meekins!)

special jewelry for a special day

Jewelry for the mother of the bride aka the 2nd most important lady of the day. The bracelet was made from an old spoon of her grandmothers with a D on it which is also the first initial of her name (Deborah). The mouth of the sppon was cut off partially and formed into a sterling silver bracelet

This necklace and matching earrings were made specially for my mom for my wedding. Her dress was a deep purple pinkish color (Raison it was called). I cut out a decent sized piece of silver and pierced out the simple design in the middle and drilled a hole to hand the pearl from. It also has a hammer texture and the chain is recycled from an old broken silver necklace my grandmother had left behind. The necklace fell low in the center of my moms mid section to draw the eye up and down and it was beautiful against her dress.

My necklace and earrings were recycled from an antique necklace of my grandmothers. I took the large center piece off and took two of the three crystals and made them into earrings. 

Brazilian wedding sweets, Portuguese, and cities of Brazil

"Bem Casados" also known as "Well married" or Good Marriage" are sweet morsels of delicious Brazilian wedding tradition. These little cakes are filled with a dulce de leite filling and covered in a sugar coating. The guest are supposed to make a wish for the Bride and Groom before their first bite! These were a big hit at the wedding and a great way to incorporate a bit of Brazilian tradition to share with our American guests and bring our cultures together. 

Another touch of Brazil was added with our table cards all named after cities in Brazil including Fortaleza- the home town of the Groom, Brasilia, Recife, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and many others. 

Of course I little Portuguese for everyone to enjoy. "La vem a noiva" - "Here comes the bride" !

meet the maids, meet the grooms, sign the rocks

For our groomsmen and bridesmaids we had these photos put together with a short bio of each and how we know eachother. "Meet the maids" and "Meet the Grooms" added a personal touch to our reception and gave everyone the opportunity to get to know our wedding party and their importance to us. 

Love rocks! We had several creative messages on our love messages from our guests. Including "Save $"...Thanks Uncle Norm... and "Rock Solid" along with few stick figure drawings and lots of good luck and I love you's. Thanks everyone! 

We displayed these rocks along with our sand pour vase. The vase was only half filled with our mixed sand so we secured it by placing the love rocks piled on top for a keepsake display.

The overall look

The Florist arranged our beautiful displays for the table in all of my grandmothers vintage glass bottles. The flowers were added the the girls hair to tie the two looks together.

The hair, the dress, the necklaces, the lace, the flowers....everything just came together perfectly. 

The rings- before and after

I did of course receive a beautiful ring from my husband when he proposed. However, being an aspiring metal smith/jeweler I wanted to use this opportunity to make rings for both of us that were unique to our even more unique relationship. After finally solidifying a design and went on to take apart my original ring which was an odd process at first. I used the gold from my rings as accents on my new design and also as the setting around the 3 stones in the center. I used my original diamond from my husband but also added my grandmothers diamond and a yellow sapphire.

Signs, Letters, "Thank you's" and "I do's"

Using text and words at your wedding ceremony and reception is a nice touch to use in photos later, or use as thank you notes for your guests. It shows that you thought about them even before the wedding began because you planned ahead and while you were focusing on each other you still took the time to remember that special moment when you thank your guests. Text in your photos is also helpful when you put an album or display of photos together later. The text adds a moment of pause when looking at the photos and engages the viewer. 

Text for your guests at the ceremony engages them as well. For our ceremony our ring bearer carried a sign that said "Here comes the Bride!" and translated in Portuguese for our non-English guests. Even if we didn't have guests who didn't speak English it was a nice touch to bring the two cultures together. Our sign had a small lace/fabric bag hanging from it  so the ring bearer didn't have to carry two things at once. We also put fake rings inside the bag just in case! 

hand made boutonnieres

Can't forget about the guys! For all our grooms, ring bearer  fathers and grandfathers of the bride and groom and our officiant my mom and I handmade these adorable boutonnieres. Each one starts out with a circular doily which we folded into a cone shape. In the top of the cone we stitched in different fabrics that matched the clutches for our bridesmaids. All the grooms had different colored fabrics inside their boutonnieres and each had a flower made from ribbon. There are tons of tutorials on how to make flowers from ribbon online but you can also just add a touch with the wire edged ribbon that ripples and folds easily  we also added a bit of tool, a pearl, and the blue fabric in the front is left over fabric from the girls dresses that was removed from the bottoms of the shorter gals. To differentiate the Groom's his was the only one with a white lace flower on the inside rather then colored ribbon and fabric to match the clutches.