Choosing Your Wedding Bands
Wedding bands. Like the engagement ring, it’s something you’ll wear for the rest of your life. But where do you start?
James. An usher.
Thankfully, I started by speaking to James, one of my ushers, as he’d had a great experience with a jeweller local to him. He then recommended them to his brother (who was also chuffed to bits) and now to me – he’s realised a tad late he should have been earning commission. Silly, silly usher… (pictured right)
I have to admit, I was a little reluctant as I live just North of London and they’re based in Chapel Allerton, Leeds. However, working on the principle that good and bad reviews travel fast, the latter usually faster, hearing such a great review for Form Bespoke Jewellers was a smart way to kick start some decision making – word of mouth really does go a long way and it put me at ease with such an important purchase and the distance didn’t matter so much in the end as we knew we’d be up that way for other ‘wedding-in-a-field’ prep.
Michael and Tim at Form were amazingly accommodating, patient, friendly and one of the things that matters most to me, they were normal. Sounds weird being pleased someone’s normal, but what I mean is there was no big sales pitch, no fancy terminology. They just listened to what we wanted, helped us through the process of sizing, cross sections, materials and everything else. Sounds pretty uneventful doesn’t it? That’s the great thing. No hassle. Form were the third people I had been to see – with the first coming back with preposterous costs and the second not even coming back to me at all. Even in my cynical old age, I still find it amazing how someone simply making it friendly and hassle-free can make such a difference – we’ve got too much to organise to have people messing us about on costs, non-responses or, frankly, anything else. Everything to do with the wedding saps time from our days, time neither of us have enough of as it is!
When it comes to deciding what you want, there really are so many options with regard to the metals, the finishes and the profiles. We could have had platinum, but couldn’t justify the expense with the cost of everything else to do with the weddings mounting up fast. Paladium is a similar but slightly less expensive element to use and there are then other options such as titanium and the more traditional white and yellow gold.
I’m not going to write all about the different options as there’s a world of possibility out there and it’s a very personal thing. I don’t like yellow gold, but we both like the tradition of a gold band so we plumped for matching rose gold rings, mine a 6mm wide band and Liz’s 1.9mm wide as it had to match the width of the band on her engagement ring. We preferred the 18ct. rose gold as it’s less pinky-lookin’ and I made a total U-turn at the last minute and have a polished finish.
When I first started thinking about my wedding band I was thinking about a quirky design, as I touched on in my Brief History Of Rings post back in March. I really liked the idea of utilising two or three different elements but, being sensible about the budgets and then also considering I have to wear this forever, it was a natural step to move back towards a more traditional approach for a timeless wedding band.
So there we have it, an unbroken circle of gold as a symbol of our unending love. Bleurgh.
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OOOOOOOO! I love the updated rings photo!!! Yay for weddings!!!!
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