Few decades back, the economy of a nation depended on the amount of gold in the country. By Gold Standard, which is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a certain amount of gold, it is often claimed arguably, that if all the gold in Thirupati temple is taken into account, India would have been the largest economy.

Jewelry is one of the most important parts of Indian tradition of weddings and religious rituals. In a wedding, jewelry is not only a luxurious display of the bridal wear but also, it symbolizes auspiciousness. A bride is wrapped in jewelry from forehead, with tikka to her chandelier-like earrings, nose ring and the bangles for the arm, to the rings on her fingers and toes. Thus it holds the utmost significance.

India accounted for a fourth of all the gold used for making jewelry in 2009, mainly because of weddings and religious ceremonies. On the other hand it is said that diamonds are a woman’s best friend so it goes without saying that women have a very ancient and strong bond with gold silver, diamond and all metals that have been used to make jewelry. More than being a tradition or a custom, jewelry has become a status symbol for the Indian brides in Indian weddings.

Since the early days weddings have been significantly related to jewelry some way or the other. History shows the custom of dowry as an age old ritual, where fathers used to marry their daughters off to well off, well educated and compatible men along with loads of gold known as dowry. These men would take the responsibility of taking care of the daughters for the rest of their lives.

Earlier on the jewelry that brides wore, were a lot different from what it is now. Those days wedding jewelry meant a lot of gold and silver and diamond, the jewelry lacked variety of designs, they were mostly the same engravings and designs. Go to any wedding and you would see similarity in the design of wedding jewelry for the bride. These days wedding jewelry are made with loads of metal, true, but they are not as heavy and in every place you would find a different kind of design and engraving that will be enough to turn heads and catch your eyes.

Those days wedding jewelry meant mostly for the bride, but o this day you would find jewelry for the groom as well, though not as much as the brides. These days men wear bangles, kadas, gem stone studded buttons for the sherwanis and even gold chains in their neck to complete the D day look. Jewelry in olden times generally signified a feminine thing but no one would find that even men are choosy about their jewelry for their wedding. It is a very wrong idea that a man loses his manliness when he wears jewelry; rather his manliness is shown and exhibited in a better and more open form to the people looking at him.

These days wedding jewelry is not only a thing to watch out for, for the bride, even for the family, relatives and guests jewelry forms a very important part. This is because people these days think that the more they flaunt their jewelry the more people would know how rich they are and thus respect them even more. Or simply they tend to take a liking to jewelry because they think it looks good and goes with their attire. Not wearing jewelry for a jazzy event like a wedding, it somewhat feels empty.

As the necessity of wearing jewelry for Indian weddings is increasing so is the demand increasing for new designs and thus new designers. Today you would find a hundred designers who are working meticulously on the different designs. They give you a lot of variety in jewelry. To this day choosing the wedding attire and fixing the wedding date is not enough, matching or contrasting the wedding jewelry is also important. It is a very hard job to choose the right jewelry as the jewelry would vary from attire to attire and also from the time of custom, say for example if it is taking place in the morning or at night.

Everybody wants to be the talk of the event so does the bride and it goes without saying, so buying and wearing jewelry that would be an eye catcher in a wedding event or will turn heads is what everyone is looking for. Customized jewelry is also available. If you have a good idea about jewelry design then you can go to a jeweler and describe him about your design and ask him to make your jewelry for a special occasion as such.

One would find lots of different types of jewelry to be worn by the bride in various parts of the body. Some of the special jewelries are the mangtika, a piece worn on the forehead on the center parting. No doubt the brides prefer to keep a centre parting. The mangtikka are available in various sizes and designs. Armlets or armbands are another piece of jewelry that adds on to the beauty of the bride. As the name suggests it is worn on the arms. Similarly waist band is worn on the waist and it is more like a belt that is studded with jewelry and gems and holds the wedding attire in place. Other than this the general ones such as necklace, anklets, rings, earrings and bangles are to be seen in various innovative from.

Jewelries are also categorized into antiques, custom, fashion jewelry, bead jewelry, copper jewelry, jadau, handmade, gold, silver, ivory, stone, navaratna, menakari, kundan and the like. The brides can choose which ever they like and match them with their attires to look just perfect and gorgeous on their wedding day. After all it is supposed to be her day and it comes only once.

Raja Kumar