128 bits -> 128 bits
It is true that now your encryption key is now very long lived and effectively part of your public interface, but depending on your situation that could be an acceptable tradeoff, and there are quite a few pragmatic reasons why that might be true as has been described by other comments.
Edit: you can even do 64bit snowflakes internally to 128bit AES encrypted externally, doesn’t have to be 128-128 obvs
No need to encrypt, just store the external key in a table. Not that you're likely to change algorithms.