Sold Tag

I picked out my dream wedding band...oh, 5yrs ago. Than I worked on finding one I liked as much that I could afford from August to January. Famously when discussing ring budget Mike said his ring should be allotted $50 when I laughed he said "it doesn't matter mine's just a sold tag any way." Well, when pressed to tell me the kind of ring he wanted he choose this:

He like that it matched my engagement ring and the triangles reminded him of Zelda. As the wedding got closer he decided to order lab created stones and make this ring himself. He would use metal clay to make the setting. Here's what the clay looks like before it's fired.

The plan was to throw it in the kiln and then polish it up. Unfortunately, he carved too much away and it broke. He tried to repair it, but it doesn't seem salvageable. So, now 2 weeks before the big day we were looking for a plan b. Of course the original ring we based the design on no longer existed at this point. I was feeling silly for not making him choose a plan b before now.

In the end he picked this laser engraved tungsten ring.

He likes the super manly qualities of tungsten. I like that the design matches my wedding band. He may upgrade to an emerald ring down the line, but this is the one we'll get married with.

Wedding Band Obtained!

I went yesterday to pay for the winner in the wedding band search. It was under budget and looked great with my engagement ring. I was basically jumping up and down in the store. Riley on the other hand just gotten over a stomach flu so she's healthy, but her sleeping and eating schedules are out of whack. Translation, she was a crabby girl. Thank God, my mom came too.

I sent cranky pants to the food court with grandma and got sized. I am 4.5 (big knuckle, slender finger). They're going to put little bumps in it to keep it from moving around. I got the lifetime warrenty too. They told me it would be done 5pm the next day and I shuffled on home. A few hours later they called, it was ready! Now if Mike wasn't still working and Riley wasn't being such a pill I would have flown out the door right that minute, but I waited.

Until this morning actually. I dropped Riley off with her friends and headed off to pick up my ring. I marched right into the mall and before I had even entered the jewelry store the salesman who helped me yesterday spotted me, smiled and dashed off to retrieve my ring. He was a big man, but there was something munchkin like about his round smiling face. It looked so much prettier in my size.

They put the ring beads or "speed bumps" in when they sized it. It means I have to turn the ring slightly when pushing it over my knuckle, but it doesn't slip around on my finger.

Yay, the bag says I'm loved!

On my finger!

It doesn't fit flush against my engagement ring, but I learned during ring research that nothing will. I also remembered later that I don't care. I like the way they look together.

Now, I've tucked it away for the next 54days. I think I can handle waiting to wear it for almost two months because once I put it on I never have to take it off again.

One Ring To Rule Them All

I hope you've enjoyed ring week! Sometimes, you spend months pouring over details to make a theme a reality and sometimes they just happen. I found a wonderful article that outlines the history of the wedding ring. Ancient Egypt all the way to today. I love everything about the wedding ring. I love a circle representing eternity because it has no beginning and no end. I love the left finger's "connection" to the heart. The hole in the center of the ring is not just space either; it is important in its own right as the symbol of the gateway, or door; leading to things and events both known and unknown. It's poetic and reminiscent of Stargate. Sigh.

I found my ring yesterday, Yay! It isn't an eternity band as I had thought it would be and the sudden posibility for engraving it is thrilling. I've been searching the internet and found quite a few suggestions.

This isn't exactly an engraving, but it's pretty darn cool. Projector Ring. It's like the view finder toy meets wedding band. Here's a few fun ones people had inscribed in their rings:

• Please return with man if found
• Center of Gravity
• May The Force Be With Us

I asked Mike what he thought about writing a little something inside our rings. I expected him to either have the perfect thing right off the top of his head or reject the idea completely, but he surprised me. He wants to wait a year (until our first wedding anniversary) and the engrave the rings. He thinks it would be nice to each put a promise to each other on them based on whatever emerges as the most important thing to the other person. I think it's a very sweet idea. Although "I'll pick up my socks" or "I'll do dishes once a week" wouldn't be quite as poetic as the song lyrics of Shakespeare I was imagining.

Jewerly Mission Success

Sorry for the marathon ring posts, but that's what I've been on my mind this week. I went to try on some wedding bands. It started off on the wrong foot, I was deflated that there wasn't anything remotely like the rings I had liked online at the store. I had the same sinking feeling I got walking into the racks at David's Bridal. They were very nice, but I didn't feel like they understood what I wanted.

They did show me one "contour band" (the kind with the dip in it to accommodate the stone on the engagement ring) that I liked. When I say I liked, I mean didn't dislike as mush as the others.

It was very similar to the band part of this set. What they suggested was to "special order" (that's me the special order bride) just the band, but to get two. That way I could surround my engagement ring with them and my emerald would still be the star of the show.

I shuffled next door pretty sure the first place had been a waste of my time. I started looking at emerald rings in the second store. There were about 5 to choice from and most were yellow gold anyway. I don't care for yellow gold I never have, but jewelers love to set emeralds (my favorite stone, duh) in it. They only had one I was interested in.

It was like this one only it had diamonds and emeralds. Kind of cool, definitely different and it had emeralds, but I was still only lukewarm here. On the plus side, I did find an amazing (and reasonably priced) necklace to go with my wedding dress. You see, I start out saying an all diamond band and pearls with my dress and it all turns to emeralds. Which is fine with me because I don't know how many occasions I'll have for pearls, but I know I'll wear this beautiful necklace again.

I left there not empty handed, but a little down trodden about the wedding ring situation. I was going to exit the mall entirely when I spotted the store where Mike's cousin and his bride had recently purchased theirs. One last look, what could it hurt I thought. They had an even smaller emerald selection than the second store. However, the sales lady had really fun eye shadow on and didn't bat an eyelash at odd ring requests. When I walked over to the case of diamond bands I saw it before I even came to a full stop. The one.

It's like the one above, but prettier and not an eternity band. Low and behold trying them on convinced me I don't actually care for the stones all the way around. I also learned how hard it is to match a custom engagement ring to any band. I also learned that there are levels of custom in the jewelry world. Most of them want to swap stones in an existing ring or something like that. To start from a sketch, make a mold than a setting and select stones isn't a request they seem to get a lot. Also, as expected it's not in the budget. Which doesn't matter because the ring that stopped me in my tracks and looked good with my engagement ring is well under my ring budget. I would have put a deposit down today, but Mike would've freaked out. Yay! I really love it and since I'm not doing an eternity band I can get it engraved! Squeal!

PS: Why is nothing on the jewelry store's websites in the store? Worse, why could I not find any of the rings I looked at today on their websites? Sigh...

"Rock" Bands

My first love was this beautiful band I found on Tiffany's site. They called it a swing ring and wanted almost twice what my car cost for it. I found the same band at Robbins Brothers in California for a much more reasonable rate. That was years ago now. I've been Googling for months looking for that band or something like it.

Last night I found this on brilliant earth. It's beautiful, but out of the budget. I do feel much better that it still exists.

What I really want at this point is alternating diamonds and emeralds. Something different enough to suit me and match my engagement ring. I have a beautiful natural round cut emerald in my engagement ring. I saw a lot of pretty but not right rings until last night when I found this:

I LOVE this! I am sold on everything, but the price. I want to find this setting maybe with lab created emeralds and try it on. I really love it. Back to my search...

Marrying Mr. Know-It-All

I love Michael very much. Over all he has been great during wedding planning so far. He is a very smart man, but he tends to get carried away. He likes to think he's an expert on things he doesn't know much about. Like languages he doesn't speak, cities he's never been to and recently wedding related information.

The other night when I brought up wedding rings he insisted no one wears their engagement ring and wedding band together. Wrong. All of my friends married in the last 5yrs do. My mother did, his mother did. He said not only should I not wear both, but that I should wear only my engagement ring because it'll be the prettier of the two. What? Sorry, if a girl leaves a ring in the jewelry box it is not the wedding band. The wedding band is an everyday, forever accessory.

He insisted if I got the eternity band I wanted it would "get crud in it". I tried to explain all rings do, especially when you wear them regularly, but he said everyone gets a plain metal band for this reason. I know very few couples where either person went this route myself. I ponder this, but he's just wrong. He doesn't want me to "deal with a jewelry store" and thinks it's be best to order online. What?!? No. No. No. Nope, not going to pick the most important piece of jewelry I'll ever own out online and hope it's what I wanted when it gets here. Not happening. I know exactly what I want I just have to find it.

He is so convinced of things like this I sometimes begin to doubt myself. He is not the typical groom and I'm so glad. He does care what the invitations look like or how I'll wear my hair. I just have to remember that sometimes his passionate need to protect me (from swindlers in jewelry stores or worst of all settling for something that isn't exactly what I want.) can be jarring. He means well, but by no means does he know everything or even what's best.

The Diamond Standard

My engagement ring is not a Tiffany's diamond solitaire. That was not me. Budget aside, Michael would never have picked out something in a jewelry store case and walked away. I told him I wanted an emerald and being the modern couple we are, we shopped together. We picked out the perfect loose stone together. A round cut, natural emerald from South America. It was just the right shade and imperfectly perfect.

When I showed co-workers the kind of ring I wanted they were shocked. "Don't you want a diamond?!?" Well, there will be smallish diamonds flanking the emerald I'd explain, but they would still looked at me like I had two heads. Beyond a few comments from people who didn't know me well I didn't get a lot of heat on the ring choice. Some of my other choices, like my move across the country live with Mike and his preschool age son caused a stir. There was talk about how long we had been together and "engaged" without a ring, for sure. Once I had the ring nobody complained.

I didn't think it mattered that much when I got it or what it looked like. I wanted a tangible symbol of the promise, but I had time. I had lots of patience until I had a baby. Once I was his soul mate, co-parent, girlfriend, room mate AND the mother of his child I needed the ring. Whether it was social pressure to be perceived a certain way or do things the "right way" or just validation and reassurance that I needed, I needed the ring now.

By the time Riley was 3mo old I was not so subtly hinting that I wanted the ring. If it were truly a pure symbol of commitment I shouldn't have needed it so badly, I knew Mike wasn't going anywhere. If it were purely a tangible sign of commitment why would anyone care whether it was a diamond or not? The idea of having diamond engagement rings came from a De Beers ad campaign in 1938. I don't know about you, but when I hear stuff like that I feel like a huge tool. Capitalism has it's claws pretty deep in a lot of wedding "tradition."

In Offbeat Bride the author points out that while the ring is a symbol of commitment on the surface it's also a status symbol. I know I heard at least one "Can't he afford a diamond?" comment. Is that the purpose of an engagement ring? To prove your future spouse is flush (or foolish enough to go into debt to make everyone think so). I know when I visited my dad after the official proposal (not making this up) he got out a jeweler's loop. My ring however unconventional, passed inspection.

Bottom line, why shouldn't we pick any stone, metal, material that means something to us? It represents an incredibly intimate and personal promise. It's ridiculous to expect the tangible manifestation of that promise to always look the same. All politics aside I think diamonds are pretty, but there is such a spectrum of beauty out there. Follow your heart and as an added bonus say damn the man to the diamond corporations.

Ring-A-Ding Ding

The ring was quite a point of contention for awhile. We were unoffically engaged a long time. So, long I concieved, incubated and gave birth to a new person. I became self concious of "ring lookers". I walked around with my newborn and my tiny stature, I'm sure being mistaken for a teen mom. I knew Mike wasn't dragging his heals out of fear of committment, but rather a perfectionist need to "do it right." It's no less annoying when that's the reason by the way.

My mom sent me my grandma's ring the previous Thanksgiving. It's a beautiful ring and it was my mom's engagement ring. I wore it when I was fearful of ring lookers or just needed something tangible. I offered to let Mike hang on to it and propose with it, but he wouldn't hear of it.

My grandma's ring.

Mike and I had a long talk about what kind of ring I'd like and even visited some jewerly stores together. I knew I didn't want a diamond solitare that just didn't appeal to me. Not that there's anything wrong with diamonds, I happen to think they're beautiful. My favorite stone is emerald and in our reasearching we found a jewelry store that specialized in emeralds. I loved this one:


It was in a jewelry store called Queen Emerald. All of their beautiful natural stones were from South America. The man who worked there was incredibly nice. He taught us all about the color and clarity scale and talked cuts of stone with us for a long time. I had hoped Mike would return for that ring, but he wanted to buy loose stones and his own setting (of course).

Here's the ring he proposed with:

My Engagment Ring:
The stone is a round cut emerald, which we learned are pretty rare in this size. Isn't it beautiful? It came from Queen Emerald of course. It is flanked on either side by small pear shaped diamonds. No idea where those came from, we looked at daimonds all over town and NO ONE was as nice as the Queen Emerald guy. The setting may be upgraded to platinum someday. I was just so happy to finally have a ring.

Here's the wedding band I like. Told you I like diamonds. I want an eternity band, sue me, I am a girl. I love the cicles alternating with the eye-shape. We looked at these at one or two stores once upon a time. I hope I can still find something like it.

My wedding band:
Beautiful, isn't it? Sigh.
I'm not opposed to the idea of substituting some of the diamonds for emeralds. It would certainly make it cheaper and it would match my engagement ring better. I really like it this way though. I guess we'll see where we land on that once we start paying for things.

Originally, Mike said no stones in his wedding band and I picked out a beautifully hand-engraved palladium ring for him. I love the idea of him having a palladium ring because that is used in all kinds of technology. I can't find any good images, but trust it was nice. After he saw it in person he told me he didn't like it. He also changed his mind about wanting stones (like so many grooms I know!). Here's his pick:


He says it "reminds him of Zelda". Something about the triangles. I like that the stones are inlaid and we would match. Honestly, I'm still secretly pouting over the original ring he rejected. Plus, having a vague sense what the stones for my engagement ring cost I told him we would never be able to afford this.

He said "Don't worry, I don't need a natural emerald we can get a lab grown one much cheaper. It isn't that important for mine. My ring is only a sold tag, anyway."