How to Choose Jewelry to Pair with Your Wedding Dress

Make sure you have the right accessories with your gown.

While the dress is the most important part of your wedding-day outfit, accessories will help complete the look.

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Photo: Lilly Red Creative

While the dress is the most important part of your wedding-day outfit, accessories will help complete the look. "Choosing your bridal accessories is not as straight forward as selecting what to wear on any other occasion, of course!” says Maradee Wahl, the bridal stylist behind Dear Maradee. Your jewelry, headpiece, or any other accessories should complement your gown, not compete with it. 

The neckline can be a major factor in deciding how to accessorize: a strapless style leaves a lot of room to play, while a high or illusion neckline would mean you’d likely forgo a necklace. “Select a smaller earring paired with a necklace, or a larger earring and skip any other jewelry,” Maradee advises. “For your wedding day, the whole ensemble should blend together, without any one item receiving too much visual focus.”

how to choose jewelry to go with your wedding dress, what color jewelry to wear with your wedding dress?

Photograhy by Amy Anaiz Photography

The next step is to choose the right metal hue for your dress. Typically, bright white gowns go best with silver tones, whether it be sterling silver, white gold, or platinum. Ivory has been more popular with brides in recent years, and the color looks best with gold when it has warm undertones, or rose gold for pink undertones. Of course, nowadays plenty of women select a wedding dress that’s not a shade of white at all. If possible, compare the gown against the accessories you’re considering, but when in doubt, cool colors are best with silver and warm colors are best with gold. 

“Many brides are concerned about matching the metal type or color of their bridal accessories to the engagement ring,” Maradee notes. “My advice is for all the new accessories to be of one tone (all silver, gold, or rose gold), especially if your gown has beaded embellishments.” Although your engagement ring and new wedding band are the truly the most important accessories, the aesthetic is less of a concern. Maradee clarifies, “The ring is the main element of your new everyday lifestyle, so it stands alone and doesn’t need to match anything else, on the wedding day or any other day!”

For more advice, learn more about ordering custom engagement rings and see examples of bracelets that real brides wore to their weddings.