When Wedding Day Diamond Jewelry Becomes A Family Heirloom

Only Natural Diamonds spoke to three real brides about their wedding day diamond jewelry and how it made them feel. Each bride proved that wedding day diamond jewelry holds more power than you think. Brides-to-be spend months, sometimes years, planning their wedding day. From the ceremony set up to the to the reception flowers, thoughtful planning requires carefully selected details. This, of course, applies to the brides ensemble. Whether she wears one dress or incorporates outfit changes, a bride wants to feel her best on this big day. And one way to set this special day apart from the rest is through her jewelry. It could be something old, passed down from a family member. Something new, purchased for the occasion, or perhaps something borrowed. A sparkling suite of natural diamond jewelry will instantly elevate how the bride looks and feels on her wedding day.

For some brides, jewelry connects them to family members. For others, it’s a perfect day to start their own traditions. It’s clear these brides wore jewelry that played a huge part in the sentimentality of the big day. 

1. One Diamond Industry Expert’s Grecian Wedding Day Diamond Jewelry:

For Grace Barretti, Senior Marketing Manager at Greenwich St. Jewelers in New York City, each diamond jewelry piece she wore at her Greek destination wedding connected her to someone special in her life. “I borrowed [my] earrings from my boss Jennifer Gandia, co-owner of Greenwich St. Jewelers,” she tells Only Natural Diamonds. “Jennifer wore them to her sister and business partner Christina Gandia Gambale’s wedding, making them significant pieces to wear.” 

The earrings were her something borrowed and the starburst design of the piece “enhanced how I felt at the center of the day. Plus, they had the perfect dangling movement.” Both Jennifer and Christina were able to attend her wedding, which “meant so much” to the bride. “We’re very close and have a great connection outside of work, too.”

But her earrings weren’t the only piece of diamond jewelry that day to hold a special connection. “My wedding band belonged to my maternal grandmother and is engraved with her wedding date,” Barretti shares. “It fit me perfectly and didn’t even need to be sized.” True kismet!

As part of the Greewich St. Jewelers team, Barretti had access to the best artisans when designing her engagement ring. She had a head start with a nearly-100-year-old natural diamond that originally belonged to her paternal grandmother. “I never met [her], but I know from tales of her style,  I inherited the jewelry bug from her.” Her now-husband Christos received the ring as an heirloom from Barretti’s father who proposed to her mother with the same ring on Christmas Eve 30 year ago.

“It looked very different when I got engaged with the original ring 5 years ago,” Barretti explains. “It was a platinum 3-stone ring with tapered baguettes flanking the round brilliant cut center diamond. The shank was wearing very thin by this point,” she remembers. “While I loved the idea that this timeless ring hadn’t changed one bit in so many years, I knew I would eventually need to restore it into something more my style.” But of course, like any good jewelry lover, Barretti saved the original setting. 

Barretti transformed the ring into a toi-et-moi. The design represents “the past and present, and the bind Christos and I have,” she explains. “I added a Colombian pear-shaped emerald I sourced while on a business trip with Jennifer and Christina at the Tucson gem shows.” Barretti worked with Greenwich St.’s Master Jeweler Roman, who finished the design a few months before the wedding. “He had decades of experience and is one of the only people I would trust to reset this special heirloom.”

“I sketched out the exact angle I wanted the pear to be set,” she says of her involvement. “Yuko our production director oversaw the process making sure I was happy with it just like she would with any other client. It was even more meaningful knowing it our talented team, known for their bespoke designs, made it”

The jewelry lover feels “a sense of tradition to continue to pass [the engagement ring] along.” Especially now that she and Christos have expanded their family. The couple welcomed baby girl Kleio this year.

“I wouldn’t be offended if she wanted to change it to be more her style either, as wedding jewelry is very personal,” she says. “The stones hold so much sentimental value and I’d be honored if she was excited to wear them herself one day, no matter the final form.”

2. One Jewelry Insider’s Sentimental Wedding Day Diamonds:

Sydney-based 2024 bride Ashley Elcham had a similar destination wedding in Europe—hers in Rome—and a similar background working in jewelry—as a Visual Merchandising & Store Planning Executive for Van Cleef & Arpels, Oceania. For three days, Elcham, her husband-to-be and their closest friends and family celebrated in Rome. They entertained guests with with a welcome dinner, pre-wedding bridal party photoshoot, and the actual wedding celebration.

“I am a very sentimental person. I loved the idea of wearing pieces that he gifted to me,” shares Elcham. “So, for our rehearsal dinner and the bridal party photo shoot, I wore pieces of jewelry that Jordan had gifted me over the past 8 years.” When it came to the wedding day, she too wanted diamond jewelry that connected her to her loved ones.

“For the wedding day, it truly was the most timeless and sentimental pieces I chose to wear,” including a something borrowed from her mom—”a pair of stunning 2 carat diamond Tiffany & Co. earrings”—and a gift from her dad, a Tiffany & Co. natural diamond pendant. “Since my parents are no longer together, I wanted to honor them in my jewelry… I had a piece from my mum and a piece from my dad.”

When it came to her engagement ring, Elcham was perhaps a bit more in the know than the average bride, thanks to her role at Van Cleef & Arpels. “I learned about the 5 Cs of Diamonds (the 5th C being Character, which was added by the Maison). Each time I went home, I would share with Jordan what I had learned.” An excellent perk of the job for a partner on the engagement ring hunt!

“From this experience, I appreciated the features that make a diamond particularly unique, that few people are aware of,” she continues. “For example, the colour and clarity of a diamond became more important to me than the carat.”

Elcham’s ring is from Canturi, an Australia-based jeweler, and designed by her husband Jordan. “I have always been a classic girl, so I knew for a while that brilliant cut was what I loved.” Although at first she thought about adding tapered baguettes to the design, her husband ultimately went with a simple solitaire. “It was Jordan who made the decision to have these added to the ring in the future as an anniversary present and to invest in the main diamond instead.” With Canturi’s showroom located right under Elcham’s office in Sydney, she laughs about how he “took a huge risk in picking the ring without me knowing!”

 “My decision to choose sentimental pieces that told a story was inspired by the lessons I have learned working at Van Cleef & Arpels,” reveals Elcham.  “My engagement ring shape inspired my wedding band with 16 0.576-carats of brilliant cut platinum diamonds from Cartier.” Elcham sees herself passing down these pieces down to the next generation, “a traditional I dream of doing one day.”

3. One Interior Designer’s Minimalist Jewelry for the Big Day:

Interior designer Julia Sergeon went for the ‘less is more’ look when it came to her wedding day diamond jewelry. “I really wanted to wear jewelry that felt like I was wearing it, it wasn’t wearing me,” she explains. “I like the sentiment of diamonds… [that] they’re tough and I know that they are going to last forever… but I don’t necessarily want to be blinged out.”

Sergeon’s wedding day look was a reflection of that attitude. She paired her simple dress and stylish headdress with a pair of earrings from Almasika, a gift from her sister. “I wanted to wear earrings that I thought would be timeless but stand out a little bit.” She says, “I thought that they were so lovely. I could wear them for the first time at my wedding but then they became earrings that I can wear whenever I want in real life.”

For her wedding band, Sergeon chose a unique ring that was “very cool but also really practical for my life.” Rainbow K’s Grace ring fit the bill perfectly. “A big part of why I liked it was that it [was] different than what I have seen a lot of traditional wedding or eternity bands look like,” she explains. “I [also] ride horses and so I ride [with] gloves and I do a lot of things where I have to use my hands, whether it’s tacking up a horse or riding a horse… So it was the perfect thing for me.”

The wedding jewelry process opened Sergeon’s eyes to the longevity of jewelry, something she appreciates now more than ever. “My husband and I went to Cartier to pick out his wedding band. The salesman said when you’re picking out jewelry like this, you have to remember that it is going to outlive you,” she recalls. “And I was like, ohh, I never heard it put that way.” Sergeon explains something shifted where she used to spend more money on shoes and handbags, she now sees jewelry as “the real investment.”

And not only for its physical longevity, but its enduring sentimental value, too. “I like the idea of a niece or a daughter or someone who I really care about one day be able to wear or just know that they have a piece of something that I held so dear, similarly to how I felt the desire to wear my father’s watch at my rehearsal dinner,” she says. 

Plus, you can’t beat diamond jewelry’s origin story, something that stood out to Sergeon in her jewelry education. “I love gold jewelry, diamonds, and sapphires because there’s something so interesting about these metals or stones that come out of the Earth.”

“This past year for our anniversary, my husband did get me a more straight forward eternity band,” Sergeon shares. “It’s an Elsa Peretti for Tiffany platinum band that only has one diamond in it, but I love it for that reason.” Another piece that is a reflection of her minimalist sense of style. “It feels very modern. As someone who thinks Elsa Peretti was such a cool person, I like the idea of almost like her essence hanging out with my sapphire engagement ring. And I just think that it’s really lovely and wearable.”