Sixty years ago my grandfather, Stewart Simonson, was looking for the perfect gift to give my grandmother, Mary Jane, for their anniversary. While living in Puerto Rico, he had become familiar with a Cuban tradition that gifted gold bangles to symbolize precious life moments. My grandfather embraced this tradition and started giving my grandmother a beautiful gold bangle each year to commemorate their anniversary.

This sweet custom continued year after year until Mary Jane passed, and my grandfather found himself looking for a way to honor both her and their beautiful tradition. So he gifted her bangles to their five children, in hopes of them adopting the custom into their own marriages.

And with that, the Simonson family tradition was created.

After years of struggling to find a reliable source to provide quality pieces, I finally took matters into my own hands (quite literally). While pregnant with my second daughter, I took a metal smithing class at my alma mater, Vanderbilt University, in Nashville. Fascinated by the process, I spent months learning how to create gold bangles myself– and the rest is history.

Who would’ve guessed that my grandfather’s simple anniversary gift would grow into what it is now: a way to celebrate all of the special milestones in your life with meaningful jewelry, year after year.