Some of my bracelets have done more travelling than I have these days.
Not long ago, a customer named Hanri messaged to say thank you for an order of four gold filled bracelets. She'd been admiring the jewellery for a while, and when I asked about the story behind the order, what she told me was so lovely I asked if I could share it. She said yes — so this is Hanri's story, and it's one of my favourites.
A friendship spread across the world
Hanri and three of her closest friends live in different corners of the world. Over the years they've kept a small tradition going: whenever they can, they gift each other a bracelet from wherever life has taken them. Something to wear, and a way of carrying each other close even when there are oceans in between.
This year, it was Hanri's turn. She'd booked a girls' trip to Savannah, where the four of them would finally be in the same place at the same time — something that, for some of them, hadn't happened in nearly three years. So before she went, she ordered four gold filled forget me not bracelets. One for herself, and one for each friend she was about to see. In a way, these have become their friendship bracelets — a little tradition with real meaning behind it.
The detail that made me smile
When Hanri placed the order, she asked me to engrave the date they were all meeting onto the back of every bracelet.
I love that. It's the kind of detail that means nothing to a stranger and everything to the four of them — a small private marker of the day they were finally together again. Long after the trip is over, every time one of them fastens her bracelet, there's that date sitting against her wrist.
That's exactly what this jewellery is for. Not to be kept for best, but to be worn every day, holding something that matters.
Four friends, four wrists
When they met up in Savannah, Hanri sent me a few photos — the four of them together under the string lights, and their wrists side by side with the bracelets on. She admitted it took a fair few tries to get everyone's bracelet into the shot, with plenty of laughing along the way, but I think the photos are perfect. You can feel the years of friendship in them.
And the bracelets aren't staying in Savannah. From there, they travel home with each friend — to New York, to Miami, and to the Cayman Islands. Four matching pieces, made at my bench in Northern Ireland, now living on four wrists thousands of miles apart.
Why forget me not
There's a reason the forget me not felt right for a story like this. Long before it was ever a piece of jewellery, the little blue flower was a symbol of true friendship and of remembering one another — of saying, simply, don't forget me.
For four friends who don't often get to be in the same room, that feels just right. A bracelet each, the same date on every one, and a reminder that the distance doesn't change a thing.
The gift of being thought of
What I love most about Hanri's order is that it wasn't really about the jewellery at all. It was about four friends making the effort to find their way back to each other, and marking it with something they could keep.
That's what so many of the pieces I make are for. A birth flower for a new baby. A name for someone you've lost. A date for a day that mattered. The bracelet is just the thread — the meaning is always the person wearing it, and the people they're thinking of.
Thank you, Hanri, for trusting me to make something so special, and for letting me share your story.
Make it meaningful
Our gold filled forget me not bracelets can be engraved with a date, a name, or a word of your own — a way to carry a friend, a memory, or a moment close. Whether it's a gift for someone far away or a little tradition between friends, each one is made by hand to be worn and loved every day.
You'll find the forget me not bracelet, and the rest of the collection, at rebeccamayjewellery.com.