The Rings

Today, Michael and I went shopping for wedding bands - finally! We both had a day free so thought we'd have a long lazy morning and spend the afternoon trying our luck at a few different jewellery stores before Michael had to go to work again in the evening.  This being the case, we started in the Lisburn area before heading into Belfast if we didn't find anything that we liked.

We had a discussion about what budget we should stick to and had considered getting cheaper bands to save some money and replace them later down the line, for example, when our first child is born or when I turn 30 - whichever comes first!

Our first stop was C.R. Lowry's Jewellers where we both tried on a few different rings and I actually found one straight away that looked pretty great with my engagement ring, albeit a bit blingier than I was comfortable with.  I knew it would likely be a bit of a challenge to find a band to suit my engagement ring with it being such an unusual shape and was fully prepared to have my ring moulded and ship it off to have my wedding band custom made to suit.  My engagement ring is 18 carat white gold and I was pretty sure that I wanted my wedding band should be the same metal.  After a bit of hmming and haaaing over some men's rings too I could sense that we weren't really clicking with anything there so we moved on.

Across the road to Shannons Jewellers, where we were slightly more interested in the smell of freshly baked scones than the wedding bands! Again, spent about 20 minutes trying on a bunch of different rings and not seeing anything that suited us.  They had a wide range of shaped wedding bands but absolutely nothing close to the shape of my engagement ring.  The bands they were showing Michael were ultra-modern in different colours (one was actually white), patterns and diamonds (yes, diamonds) so we eventually gave up and walked out.

The next jewellers we tried was on a bit of a whim, Margaret Forbes, where we didn't expect to see anything we liked as it's a bit of a Lisburn institution (it's been there longer than we've been alive) and is famed for its old, vintage style jewellery.  From the second we were buzzed in we were pounced on by a very straight-talking sales woman who basically rubbished my idea of wanting a band to suit the shape of my engagement ring, making me try on straight edged bands instead. Her theory was that a shaped ring would take away from the unusual shape of my engagement ring and I'd never be able to wear my wedding band on its own without it looking strange. I did start to see what she meant, and after trying on a few straight edged (very sparkly) bands she handed me one that had a slight curve to it and when I tried it on it just sat nicely, kind of nestling closely to the curve of my engagement ring like a small hug (I embarassingly said out loud). It was a palladium band with 6 diamonds spaced out in clusters of three, like my engagement ring so it complimented it well.

And then, out of nowhere she handed me a similar shaped ring in a super ornate 1930's/Art Deco vintage setting, also palladium with a ring of small, perfect diamonds around the whole front of the band.  When I put it on all three of us went "ooh!" at the same time - it was gorgeous! It sat well with my engagement ring and gave off the right amount of bling without being overkill. I loved how different it was, how much detail was in it and how easy it was to wear and something just clicked in my head that this was the wedding band that I wanted.  I did continue to try on some other bands but kept going back to the vintage band. I also liked how the Art Deco style matches our invitations - happy coinsidence. I plucked up the courage to ask how much it was going to be - it was a little over budget...okay maybe it was a couple hundred more than we were hoping to spend...but I gave Michael the same eyes that I give him when I see a small animal that I want to take home and he let me have it. Result! I am in love.

Then it was Michael's turn to look at their mens rings. He decided that his band should also be palladium because of the nature of his job means that he needs the metal to be hard wearing.  He close a classic court style band which matches the colour of mine and it looked really well (as well as really strange!) on his hand. The hardest part for Michael will be getting used to wearing a ring but he simply swells with pride when he wears it.  His ring will be made especially for him and we'll collect it in a few weeks - I was lucky that my ring fitted me otherwise I would have had to get mine made too.

So, like everything else so far, ring shopping was fairly painless and done in one day. We dandered down to The Cardan for some lunch (and a celebratory glass of something for me) before going home and ticking "wedding bands" off our to-do list. We can't wait to give them to eachother in just over 14 weeks time :)