Vintage Wedding Accessories: A Buyer’s Guide

As lovely as they are, a love of vin­tage wed­ding acces­sories isn’t often the main rea­son cou­ples choose to have a vintage-themed wed­ding. It could be a love of the music of that era, admi­ra­tion of vin­tage fash­ion icons or even falling in love with a par­tic­u­lar dress but rarely will some­one choose an entire theme on the basis of lik­ing jew­ellery from a cer­tain era.

That doesn’t make vin­tage acces­sories any less impor­tant, how­ever. In fact, choos­ing the right acces­sories is prob­a­bly one of the most impor­tant aspects of hav­ing a vin­tage themed wed­ding; they tie together a bridal out­fit, adding an extra edge of retro glamour.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a short buyer’s guide to vin­tage wed­ding acces­sories — it’s by no means defin­i­tive as wed­dings are such a per­sonal expe­ri­ence that mak­ing par­tic­u­lar rec­om­men­da­tions is usu­ally a bit futile! How­ever,  it should give you a gen­eral idea of what to look out for and where to look out for it.

Stick To Your Theme

Okay, so it’s kind of obvi­ous but when set­ting out on your acces­sory hunt, your theme will help nar­row down the range of acces­sories on offer sig­nif­i­cantly. Do a bit of research on what was hot (and not!) at that par­tic­u­lar time.

There’s loads of blogs dish­ing out vin­tage inspi­ra­tion and advice on cer­tain eras (includ­ing my own) and even some­thing as sim­ple as look­ing as pho­tographs from the era can give you a good idea of what to look out for. A lot of wed­ding acces­sory stores and web­sites will give you a help­ing hand by cat­e­goris­ing their ranges by era too!

Authen­tic or Designer?

There’s some­thing quite roman­tic about the idea of wear­ing authen­tic vin­tage wed­ding shoes or jew­ellery on your big day, but it’s worth keep­ing in mind that choos­ing only authen­tic vin­tage will involve a lot of root­ing around and will prob­a­bly set you back quite a lot of money. Patience and a big bud­get are a must!

I’m prob­a­bly a bit biased, but I think for the stressed out bride with lots of other con­sid­er­a­tions to make as well, buy­ing ‘new vin­tage’ is far eas­ier and often quite a bit cheaper too. Design­ers like Jo Barnes and Rachel Simp­son spe­cialise in acces­sories that per­fectly cap­ture the era they were inspired by and — in my opin­ion — look just as gor­geous as the originals!

What Acces­sories Do You Need?

When it comes to cer­tain eras of vin­tage, there are some must-have acces­sories; I’d con­sider a side tiara an essen­tial for a 20s out­fit, for exam­ple. Before you go shop­ping, have a good idea of what you’re look­ing for — that way, you won’t get over­awed by the amount of acces­sories on offer and end up buy­ing some­thing you don’t really need!

As a gen­eral rule, you’ll only want one state­ment piece of jew­ellery and a cou­ple of other more under­stated pieces to com­ple­ment your out­fit. You prob­a­bly won’t be able to decide what your state­ment piece is going to be until you’ve actu­ally looked at acces­sories, but keep the rule in mind at all times!

Stick To Your Budget

It’s a really bor­ing thing to say but it’s essen­tial that your bud­get is at the fore­front of your think­ing when shop­ping for acces­sories. It’s so easy to get car­ried away and end up buy­ing a few acces­sories that you absolutely love, but it’s impor­tant to be strict with your­self. Only buy the acces­sories you need, or else you run the risk of run­ning into finan­cial issues with other aspects of the wedding.

If you’re going on the vin­tage acces­sories hunt for the first time or sim­ply need a bit of a refresher, then I hope this mini guide has helped you. I’ve decided to save the most impor­tant tip ‘til last — have fun! Don’t get over­whelmed by stress and remem­ber exactly what all this plan­ning is lead­ing up to!