I believe I’ve mentioned before that Mr Twistie is a musician. He’s also a tremendously talented recording engineer. I love to watch him work. One of the things I get a huge kick out of is seeing the wave forms different instruments and voices make as he records things.

Well, jeweler Sakurako Shimizu has taken this idea and run with it. Those rings above? Are Shimizu’s work. The design is the wave form of someone saying ‘I love you.’ The rings come in silver, platinum, or 18k yellow, white, or pink gold. If you request it specially, they can also be made in 14k yellow gold. Oh, and if you’d rather it say something other than I love you, yeah, you can get a different (short) word or phrase instead. Each piece is custom and uses the wave form of the person you choose.

I don’t know about you, but I think this is one of the most romantic ideas in jewelry I’ve seen in a very long time.

In fact, if I come into some money soon, I’d love to have one made for me of Mr. Twistie’s voice. I may not need a new wedding ring, but another symbol of his love is always welcome.

Wedding rings are precious, but they’re also small fiddly things it’s surprisingly easy to lose.

The couple shown above are Lena and Ola Pahlsson. One day in 1995, while Lena was in the midst of a marathon baking session for Christmas, she lost her ring.

The couple searched over and over. When they remodeled the kitchen several years later, they even looked under and behind appliances and under the floorboards. No luck.

Sixteen years after the ring disappeared, Lena was in the vegetable garden pulling up some delicious carrots, when one of them proved to have something surprising on it: her long-lost wedding ring!

This is just one of seven amazing stories of lost and found wedding and engagement rings in an article over at Neatorama. Go read them for a combination good laugh and glowy feeling of things coming right in the end. Oh, and to get a couple good ideas of what never to do with your wedding ring!

(Illustration via Strange Things My Imagination Might Do)

So. This ad. Okay, I get where they came up with the joke. All the same… I can’t help thinking it sounds an awful lot like the kinds of ‘jokes’ I’ve so often heard about sexual assault.

Oversensitive? I’m inclined to think not. All the same, I’d like to know what all of you think.

Clearly, I HATE this one. How do you feel? Why?

I love a good accessory as much as the next woman. More than some. And I find myself wildly drawn to the work found at Lo Behome, a designer of fabulous flights of bridal fancy like the Cleo Fascinator, shown here. It can be worn in a variety of ways and attaches to your updo of choice with alligator clips.

But wait, there are other great accessories at Lo Boheme!
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Bling bling!

Tell me ladies, do you have a big fat diamond engagement ring on your finger? Maybe a giant sapphire? I personally don’t, not for any particular bias against them (when they’re conflict free) but rather because I am a ring snagger so I do best with low-profile rings that aren’t going to rip out my hair and destroy my delicates. I do have a surprising number of friends sporting big bling, some of whom I think must still be paying it off after a few years.

No matter. Whether you’re partial to something like Twistie’s silver frog or the 10 carat estate ruby I do occasionally wear (snag snag) or a huge honkin’ diamond set in platinum, there’s one thing most most engagement rings have in common. And that’s that engagement rings are given to women by men. Which is fine and dandy – who doesn’t love presents? – but it does have this weird way of tipping the scales, making people feel inadequate, and switching on the materialism in nice people who aren’t typically prone to that sort of thing. Plus, according to Slate’s Dear Prudence writer Emily Yoffe:

It turns young women — otherwise independent, successful strivers — into passive recipients, waiting for their prince to rescue them from their single state. In what other aspect of their lives do young women so totally turn over their future to the decisions of others? I get letters from women who regularly scour their beloved’s sock drawer, hoping to see a ring box, evidence that marriage is in their future. The ritual of the engagement ring means he decides, he buys, he proposes. Throwing the ring out of the equation encourages the progression toward marriage to be more of a continuing discussion, a joint decision.

What do you think? Should engagement rings go the way of the dodo or should things get back into balance with the introduction of an engagement gift for men trend?

via Cristiano Ronaldo (WARNING: Many images NSFW… or the faint of heart about boobies and other ladybits)

So. I was watching Four Weddings the other night (Fridays, 10:00, 9:00 Central on TLC) and was quite intrigued with one couple: Rachel and Brad. They were actors who put together a rather gloriously OTT wedding. There were bagpipes and air horns at least one acrobat, and handfasting done with sparkly ribbons, and the groom vowing never to smoke another cigarette. In fact, Mr. Twistie and I both agreed it was one we wished we could have gone to… and when Mr. Twistie gets as enthusiastic about a wedding as to want to be there, well, you know it’s a party.

Anyway, one of the less than conventional decisions that Rachel and Brad made was to have their wedding rings tattooed on rather than going the more common route of buying metal bands. Fair enough. Not my thing, but then needles wig me out on an epic level. Mr. Twistie, too. We would happily live in a universe where needles never, ever, ever get inserted into human flesh. But it wasn’t our decision to make. It was Brad and Rachel’s decision, and they chose to have ink on their hands.

In the opening interview, Rachel talked about how much more practical this is because you can’t accidently lose your ring. After all, a marriage is supposed to last a lifetime. She called it ‘more functional.’

Okay. Of course I know a lot more couples who have gotten divorced than have lost their wedding rings, but I can see where she’s coming from and have no beef with her reasoning or her reasons. It’s her finger. She gets to determine whether it bears a ring, a tattoo, or nothing at all.

When I started getting it as a cool thing was during the ceremony. The happy couple was asked to explain their choice to their guests. So what did Brad say?

It’s a blood oath, and the only tattoo that will ever adorn my body.

Dayum! Now that’s the sound of a committed groom!

How could Rachel top that? One simple declarative sentence:

You’re in my flesh forever.

Will Rachel and Brad live happily ever after? Will they always be happy with their decision to opt for ink over gold? Those are questions I cannot answer. All I know is they’re going in expecting forever and refusing to be anyone but themselves.

And you know what? I think that gives them at least two and a half legs up on people who don’t enter marriage precisely that way.

Manolo says, please allow the Manolo to present to you the latest addition to the Manolosphere: Manolo Jewelry!

Edited by our good friend, and the long-time commenter at the blogs of the Manolo, La Petite Accadienne, who will be certain to provide you with much jewelry-based entertainment.

Manolo Jewelry!

And now you must go and leave our friend La Petite Acadienne the comment welcoming her to the world of blogging.