Choosing Bands, part 1

One of the design elements Jeff and I have been going over for a couple months now is our wedding bands. Jeff is not big on buying jewelry (heck, I picked out my engagement ring and told him exactly where he could find it) and both of us want a special wedding band for each other.

So here are some of the thoughts we've had over it all-

We like mixed-metal rings, a lot.

We both love Celtic knots (e.g. he carves it on our furniture and back door and I have two Celtic tattoos).

We really want them to match and not get different rings for each other. So what does this translate to in what we are looking at?

The Wedding Band Shop

JewelryDesigns.com

We did a lot of Google searching for inspiration. A lot of searching. We have decided that we like the Trinity knot over other forms of knots we could have chosen. And then we fell in love with rose gold inlays.

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Green Lake Jewelry Works

We have decided that copper or brass inlays probably won't work well because the metal will age and discolor faster than we would like. So now we have a pattern and an idea of what we're wanting to have made (but still haven't found exactly what we want).

Just to recap: we want silver bands with knots all around it with a secondary metal complimenting our design. We do not want rings with holes cut through it, etched designs, or vastly different bands. Nightmare, right?

Just to throw a monkey wrench in the works, we were given an amazing gift this past weekend from Jeff's grandmother. His only remaining grandparent still alive gave us the wedding bands of her and her husband. And Jeff's great-grandmother's ring as well. Wow. I was shocked when she pulled them out and said she wanted us to have them for our own wedding. (Jeff wasn't even there when she did this, I was visiting her while Jeff was cutting firewood for us to take home). I was overwhelmed with the generosity of Nana and could only hug her and thank her for this priceless gift. Jeff is close to his grandmother and was close to his granddad as well, so this meant a lot to him. After we got over the shock of this, we talked about the rings when we got home that night and tried them on. Guess what? They fit perfectly.

Nana and Granddad's rings

Great-grandmother's ring in a rose hue, dated 1927

The two ladies rings...still can't quite capture the contrast of color

We want to maintain the integrity of the rings while still having what we want. So we're not melting them down if we can avoid it. I suggested a ring designed with the knot work plus holes and have the gold rings put inside ours so the gold can peek through the pattern and be shown. The rose-hued ring I don't think we'll use, but keep it to pass down to our own children when the time comes.

We have decided to talk to two jewelers in Golden Bay over the upcoming holiday weekend to get an idea of what we would be looking at to get these rings made. That's really exciting and promising, then we'll know better what price we're looking at.

So what do you think? Did anyone else struggle with a wedding band design like we are? Are we putting too much thought into these rings? What would you do if you were given heirlooms like these gold bands?