Rangoli competition winner

Today I am posting a set of pretty gold hairpins to Yvonne Nolan! Congratulations to Yvonne for winning my recent competition on the Farrell & Chase blog. Yvonne chose gold pins with a mixture of pearl and rhinestone centres. I hope you enjoying wearing your pins on your wedding day Yvonne!

Good luck to everyone else planning their weddings at the moment. Let me know if you would like to arrange an appointment to visit my showroom.

And I'd like to also congratulate Pamela from Farrell & Chase, who won the Best Wedding Supplier Website Award from www.weddingsonline.ie - Check out her gorgeous designs.

Something old and blue...

I love designing for bridesmaids. Recently I have designed for a few clients who have chosen to have just one bridesmaid. You can really have fun choosing a dress and accessories for one person. No clashing of personalities or body shapes :-)

I designed this antique looking piece for one such bridesmaid. Her vintage dress was so pretty and I love the slate blue or antique sapphire shade of the fabric.

Many people have a fear of the word Tiara but this miniature tiara suited the dress perfectly and gave it the old-time glamour it needed to set it off! A fur stole finished the whole look and kept the shoulders warm.

Read more posts about bridesmaids -

Personal touches

Many of the memorable wedding ideas I have come across are really simple or inexpensive. It's lovely to put your own personal stamp on some of the details you choose.

I also notice a trend towards having mis-matched items within a particular theme. This works very well with bridesmaids dresses or any sort of vintage style. These table number settings caught my eye on StyleMePretty.com - (Photo courtesy of cunninhamphotoartists.com)

Or how about having table linen embroidered with your own monograms? These beauties are hand-made by Irish designer Charlotte MacDonald. See more of her work here or visit her own blog.

Secret Garden cuff bracelet

Everyone has their own favourite colour palette - For me it is shades of blues and greens. I recently designed this bracelet for myself and took pleasure in incorporating all my favourite gems and crystals.

The bracelet is made from fine crochet and was designed to match the Secret Garden headpiece which I featured in a previous post.

Historical hair jewels

I spent a lovely afternoon in the National Gallery of Ireland recently and found myself looking at how the women in these paintings decorated their hairstyles with strings of pearls and other decorative gems. These 16th to 18th Century ladies loved to weave pieces into their elaborate up-dos. Imagine being dressed in wedding style attire every day of your life?!

I especially love this 16th Century painting of Anne Boleyn who lived from 1507 to 1536 and was the second wife of King Henry VIII.

Read more articles about hair accessories -

Claire Pettibone real brides

What I like about Claire's dresses is how delicate they are. They are floaty and feminine with qualities of a bye-gone era. I am a fan of Claire Pettibone on Facebook and love how she has a section where her clients send her in pictures from their weddings to share with others. I have a similar section on my website which is one of the most popular sections of my site!

Here are two real brides describing their gorgeous dresses -

"The Lucien was the most wonderful piece of clothing I have ever worn! Thank you Claire for such a gorgeous gown"

I plan on submitting to the "real brides" section, but I just want to say I adore your work!

Read other posts about Claire's dresses here and here.

Art Deco inspired hairpin

One of the nicest parts of my job is getting to see so many gorgeous and varied wedding dresses. Sometimes a dress with absolutely no detail can look truly stunning while other dresses are embellished with gorgeous intricate beading or embroidered elements.

I love when I hear that someone has chosen a dress that they thought that they would never have gone for! Maybe the shop assistant or friend suggested they try on a 'wild card' and this became 'THE' dress.

I designed the hairpin above for a bride with an Art Deco style dress. It's so rewarding for me to work with my clients and hear how much they enjoy being part of the process too.

Read more about recent rangoli commissions -

Rangoli wins blog award

Rangoli has won a blog award for 'Most Inspiring Wedding Blog' on the fabulous Australian WeddingBlogAwards.com website!

I am so proud to win this award as this website promotes some amazing bridal blogs from around the world. Here are a few words from Monica ~

I am SO in love with Rangoli Jewellery! Inspiring is the best word to describe this amazing jewellery. It is delicate, feminine, with a gorgeous vintage quality.
We are dedicated to finding and promoting valuable wedding blogs; be they bride blogs, groom blogs, or wedding vendor blogs.
By selectively passing out awards we’re hoping to encourage valuable blogging and avoid all the junk so if you have a recommendation, please email us: weddingblogawards [at] gmail [dot] com

Thanks again Monica - your website has also been a great inspiration to me as a designer and blogger. It's great to be a part of this online community! I hope my readers will pass on some of their favourite online finds to you too.