We get such an insight into wedding planning! Ellie’s brides are a diverse bunch of girls so through chatting to them and their families, we’ve learnt about wedding traditions from pretty much all over the world! We think it’s fascinating how much variety there is with what’s good luck, bad luck, traditional or unusual.

One thing that crops up over and over is pearls. We have lots of mums handing down their wedding pearls for their daughter to wear on her wedding. We have lots of brides buying gorgeous pearl earrings because there’s no way they’d walk down the aisle without one!

We also have the absolute opposite too! Some brides absolutely will not wear a single pearl on their wedding day. They’ve even made bespoke changes to dresses to get rid of them! But why?

Pearl Engagement Ring

Pearl has never been a popular stone in an engagement ring. It’s a stone commonly associated with tears and it’s often considered very bad form to give pearls as a gift at all! Not a great start for an engagement ring. (If someone DOES gift you some pearls though, you can offset any bad luck by giving them a penny, so you’ve technically purchased them). Perhaps a better reason that pearl rings are considered bad luck though, is the fact the stone just isn’t suitable! Pearls are delicate. They don’t like being knocked, scuffed, submerged in water or being exposed to chemicals. A pearl worn every day in a ring is more than likely to crack. Better stick to your nice, hard diamonds.

Wedding Day Pearls

Granny’s pearls, worn by mum on her wedding day too, are a really popular wedding day accessory. As long as they’re ‘something borrowed’ you’ve managed to swerve the bad luck from receiving them as a gift. So far so good! But what about the association with tears? Doesn’t this mean you’re bringing sadness down the aisle? Some brides certainly think so. But we’ve also heard it from some more ‘glass half full’ brides that the pearls take the place of sadness, and if you don’t have them, you’ll have tears instead!

We’ll leave it up to you to decide if you want to wear pearls on your wedding day or not. But please make sure you tell us your favourite wedding customs, we love hearing them! And if you liked this, you’ll love our blog on diamonds. Check it out here!

Love,

Ellie & the girls x