Pearl Bridal Jewellery

The question most often asked by brides when buying pearl bridal jewellery is which pearls will be the best match for their bridal dress or gown.

Pearls used for pearl bridal jewellery can be divided into 2 main types: faux pearls and real pearls. The tooth test will tell you which you have - run the pearl over the cutting edge of your tooth - if it feels gritty it is a real pearl and if not it's a faux pearl (easy to remember - a "sandy" feel comes from the lake or sea!)

Faux Pearls used for Pearl Bridal Jewellery

Faux is French for false and faux pearls or imitation pearls are man-made pearls - made to resemble the real thing. We use Swarovski faux pearls for our pearl bridal jewellery as we believe they are the best on the market. They are made with a crystal centre which is then covered in a high quality pearlised coating. These pearls are available in a range of colours and sizes and have the advantage that they can always be exactly matched to each other so pearl bridal jewellery, necklace bracelet and earrings bought from different suppliers can be matched by name

The main bridal pearl jewellery colours in Swarovski pearl are white, light creamrose which is ivory and cream. The light creamrose pearls are darker than freshwater pearls and best suit a dress which is a definite ivory colour.

This is a Swarovski graduated pearl bridal necklace made in the ivory colour. As all the pearls are perfectly round and come in many sizes just 1mm increments they are very good for this kind of design

Freshwater Pearls used in Pearl Bridal Jewellery

Pearl bridal jewellery made with freshwater pearls are the luxurious option as these are natural gemstones. These are real pearls made by freshwater mussels. They are farmed mainly in China in large lakes and it can take up to 3 years to grow a 6mm pearl. 

In nature a little bit of something, like a grain of sand, enters the shell of a mollusc by accident. The shellfish finds this irritating and so secretes nacre around it to isolate it from it's body and as more and more nacre is laid down a pearl grows bigger and bigger. Pearls formed in this way are very rare and so extremely expensive. These are called natural pearls.

Freshwater pearls are cultured by inserting a small piece of mantle tissue into a mollusc. The reaction is the same as in nature - the foreign object causes the production of the nacre and the eventual formation of a pearl and that pearl. Those pearls end up usually in jewellery and are widely used to make pearl bridal jewellery.

Shape, Colour and Size of Freshwater Pearls

If you are lookig for a unique piece of pearl bridal jewellery, freshwater pearls are perfect as the variations are almost without limit. From minute seed pearls to massive pearls, from white to black and round shapes to bizarre shaped stars or hearts or sticks!

Freshater pearls are often dyed to give a greater range of colours and in brighter shades than that which occur naturally or bleached to give a more uniform colour.

We buy white freshwater pearls to make our pearl bridal jewellery and the colour of these varies slightly from one batch to another, but may be described as a pale to very pale ivory.

Baroque pearls are those with uneven shapes but the term usually applies to the larger uneven pearls and the smaller baroque pearls are often called nugget pearls.

This pearl bridal necklace is a good example to show some of the variety one can get in freshwater pearls - it makes use of large baroque pearls and nearly round pearls

Price of Freshwater Pearls

The price of freshwater pearls depends up many factors but the main ones are size, shape, surface quality and rarity. All of these factors interact to determine a pearl's price and the price of the finished pearl bridal jewellery will reflect this.

If we think of a perfectly round pearl in a very large size having a beautiful surface without any blemishes or imperfections and great lustre - this is what every pearl farmer will be striving  for as this is what will fetch the highest price and will be very rare. Generally, the further away from the perfect pearl the lower the price.

The majority of our pearls are purchased directly from China and we continually seek out pearls for each design of pearl bridal jewellery to bring you beautiful wedding jewellery at an affordable price. If only one or two pearls are to be used, like in a cravat pin or stud earrings we use a high grade AAA pearl. This grade of pearls in a full pearl necklace would be beyond the budget of most and so we buy different grades to suit various budgets and this is reflected in our pricing.

This is an example - the necklace on the left uses higher quality and so more expensive pearls than the one on the right. If you look carefully you can see the pearls are rounder and of a more even shape in the necklace on the left.

Both pearl bridal necklaces are beautiful but the price of one is higher than the other as the quality of the freshwater pearls is slightly different.

Our Advice on choosing Pearl Bridal Jewellery

If in doubt ask to see samples and if you are still not sure which pearls will be the best match for your bridal dress then we would suggest choosing white freshwater pearl bridal jewelleryas there is normal and natural variation amongst these pearls which we think allows them to look wonderful with everything, being a neutral pale ivory or off-white colour