Something Blue - Wedding Jewelry

For those of you who have worked with me before, you know I LOVE being part of the special moments in your life. It’s why I do what I do. That something I’ve created could live on in your family, make you feel beautiful, help you feel close to the ones you love, remind them of you or a special time or celebration in your life, all of it!! It’s what excites me to get up in the morning and keeps me up late in “the zone” with a smile on my face.

Recently, I had the absolute pleasure of working with a bride and groom to be. I had tears in my eyes when she started sharing photos of their beautiful wedding.

So today, I’m featuring the lovely Mr. & Mrs. Ricardo and Kami Gallardo with photo assist by the talented Gary Blake Photography. He’s so good at his job, I felt like I was at the wedding through his gorgeous work.

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Mr. and Mrs. Ricardo and Kami Gallardo

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How did you meet?

My sister had been bugging me for months to get on an online dating site. I’m currently writing this book, called “Confessions of a Grad Student”. It’s about how the female scientist can survive grad school.

I’m single and dealing with loneliness… so I’m going to write a chapter on dating.  Kelly (my sister) made an EHarmony account for me without me knowing. She put all my information on it and the whole screen said “I’m sorry, but you cannot find love in the State of Louisiana”.  (LOL).... So that was a bit discouraging and I was put off by the idea of online dating. 

A couple months later Kelly was bugging me. I thought, I need material for this chapter, let me try Christian Mingle.  I fill out my profile and it’s pretty much what I expected...  I got a trucker from Shreveport who wanted to know what a PHD was.

Kelly asked me one day how’s it going?  I say, oh, pretty much how I expected and tell her a couple of stories.  So she hacks into my account, messages 20 people and Rick was one of them.

Rick just responded to be polite because he’s in a different state and then the conversation started getting really nice. A few months later for my birthday, he wanted to send me something. My family doesn’t do birthdays so if a guy is sending me something I was like… “Woe!  I thought we were Facebook buddies!” I’m not traveling; he’s not traveling; it was safe. This freaked me out.

He said we’ve been talking for months. We should at least meet.  And I was like, well… you’ll have to get a hotel and you’ll spend all this gas money. What if we don’t hit it off? And he said well, if you’re weird I’m just gonna keep driving to New Orleans  and have a weekend to myself. So I thought, OK, he has a backup and that took all the pressure off.

We ended up meeting here (Magpie Café) because it’s my favorite place and it turned into spending 4 hours here chatting and chatting. We drove to the Shah Center downtown and went to the art museum. Then we met Kelly (my sister who hacked) at Sushi Masa. That was our first date!

After dinner he asked if I wanted to meet up for drinks in maybe an hour after we freshen up? I was like, well… I’m kinda busy and Kelly interrupts me and says, no, here’s our address, pick her up at this time, she’ll be ready.  After that she deserved a trophy for the wedding! I opened up the speeches by presenting her an award for best meddler.

So how did she pick him out of all of the people she was checking out?

She biased herself to education. He has a master’s degree and he’s actually going back in the spring to get a degree in analytics… and he’s cute!

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How did he propose?

We had been talking about it for a while. So he tells me one day, hey, I need you to show up at Magpies (the one downtown) at 8:00 dressed to impress.

Magpie…8:00, dressed to impress….got it! He wasn’t scheduled to come in to town so I thought maybe he has a gift waiting for me? Maybe this is a “we met here, anniversary, surprise date? I don’t know what’s going on. So I show up and he’s waiting there for me.

We had breakfast and I asked him, what are we doing today?  And he said, I really don’t know what we’re doing today. We sit there and had coffee and breakfast and another coffee.

Well come to find out he had booked a photographer to capture the moment and there was a mix up with the time. Rick was trying to stall till she got there. She shows up and he pops the question! It was so sweet!

What made you choose to go with handmade jewelry for your wedding jewelry?

It started with the color.  I had the blue wedding dress already. My love language is gifts so I like gifting people things and wanted to get my bridesmaids earrings that matched the color scheme.

My mother has sacrificed so much for my education and putting up with my tears of loneliness. I really wanted her to have something nice. And I wanted Rick's Mom to feel special and have something nice as well.

I had been looking for months for a blue that I really liked.  And then I saw a child’s bracelet at your stand and I thought oh my gosh that is the perfect blue! And I loved your style. It matched the theme and everything about it was perfect. The color, the style and that’s why I ended up going in the handmade direction. It was unique. I mean you’re not going to find another set of earrings like that.

How was the process for you from finding the color to coming up with the final design?

I mean, you were really instrumental in that. I’m a scientist and my fashion sense lacks sometimes so I took a lot of my cues from you.  Everyone loved their gifts. I was not expecting my mother in law to like it so much but she texted Rick the day that she wore it and said I’m wearing Kami’s necklace to this important conference I’m going to and she loved it!

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I noticed you were wearing your wedding earrings in your honeymoon pictures

Oh yeah! I’ve worn them to church ever since then because everything in my wardrobe is blue and they match everything.

How was the reaction from your bridesmaids?

I think they really liked them. They matched the dresses really well and they looked so nice on all the bridesmaids.

So hopefully, they will think of you every time they pull them out to wear!

I hope so… I hope so!

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Explore Wedding Jewelry Collection

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