Silver Wedding Jewellery

To keep silver wedding jewellery looking it's best it's important to take good care of it. A lot of the silver wedding jewellery I set is created from Sterling silver or silver plate and this tarnishes quicker than fine silver. The reason for this is that copper is added to fine silver to make it stronger allowing it to be used more structurally. This tarnish is a result of a chemical reaction on the surface of the silver and can be slowed down significantly and reversed if it's not too servere.

As you know prevention is always better than a cure so lets take a look at looking after silver wedding jewellery.

Before we take a look at preventing silver wedding jewellery from tarnishing lets take a basic look at how this tarnishing happens. In our atmosphere there is a chemical called Hydrogen Sulphide. This chemical reacts with the silver to discolour it.

So how do you stop silver wedding jewellery from become tarnished?

• Minimise the contact the wedding jewellery has with Hydrogen Sulphide by keeping it in an airtight container and only opening this container when necessary.
• Don't store them in containers that contain Hydrogen Sulphide such as cardboard and wood.
• Don't handle your wedding jewellery more than you need to as this also speeds up the tarnishing process.

OK it might be too late to prevent your wedding jewellery from getting tarnished because you've left it out on your dressing table. But don't worry with most silver wedding jewellery we can easily remove the tarnish with a few ingredients from the kitchen cupboard. Please be aware that this solution isn't suitable for all wedding jewellery but jewellery containing crystal beads or pearls should survive this process. Be careful as your wedding jewellery will be submerged in water so anything parts that have been glued could come undone.

Open your kitchen cupboards and find the bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and some tinfoil. Fill the kettle with water and put it on to boil and find yourself a big bowl. Scrunch up your tin foil and put it in the bown, place your silver wedding jewellery on top and sprinkle a good handful of bicarbonate of soda over the top. Once the kettle has boiled pour the water carefully into the bowl over the bicarbonate and jewellery. Pour enough water to cover the wedding jewellery. You should see it fizzing. Once it's stopped fizzing, carefully remove the wedding jewellery from the bowl with tweezers so you don't burn you fingers and see if the tarnish has gone, if it's not then place it back in the bowl, pour some more boiling water over the top and leave to stand for a while. Repeat the process until the tarnish has gone. For most pieces of silver wedding jewellery, doing this once should be sufficient. Make such you rinse of any of the solution and dry thoroughly. To bring your silver wedding jewellery back to a perfect shine, gently rub it with a soft polishing cloth.