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!

Ah, the classic wedding ring photo...

Oh my, Wedding Photography Week II is winding down. And that means getting down to the nitty gritty – wedding ring photography. Love it or hate it, it’s one of those things I suggest letting your wedding photographer take since it’s a five second process and you may end up liking them. That said, I found a great set of wedding ring photography tips in a wedding photography guide for brides and grooms written by wedding photographer Glen Johnson. Here’s a taste:

This is one of the most difficult shots to get for a wedding photographer. Most couples are not aware of the fact that they are blocking it either with their hand positions or with their bodies. To turn this moment into a great photo opportunity, all you need to remember is that as you are putting the ring on, position your fingers on the top and bottom instead of on the sides of the ring.

One more tip is to avoid extending your free hand out to grab your partner’s wrist so that you can push that ring on there better. If you feel it is necessary to do this, try putting your hand UNDER your partner’s hand and grabbing on from below. This approach prevents your wrist from blocking the shot. Practice this couple of times, and you will see that it is possible to put the rings on while keeping your ring visible from your guests’ view, and photo capture.

Do you plan on taking wedding ring photos? Would you be terribly disappointed if your ‘slipping the ring on his/her finger’ shots didn’t come out?

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.

There’s no shortage of information out there concerned with shopping for wedding rings, custom made wedding rings, or choosing the right wedding rings. And there’s no shortage of wedding rings! How about photo wedding rings or profile wedding rings? Then you have skinny wedding rings, engraved wedding rings, silver wedding rings, and wedding rings made out of everything you can imagine, from wood to bone. And meteorites and tattoo ink and techie stuff! It would be easy to say that there’s a wedding ring out there for everyone, but maybe you’ve just read over my little list and there is nothing on it that speaks to you.

Okay, then how about a wedding ring you make yourself, using whatever metals – all recycled – and techniques you want? That’s what the Wedding Ring Workshop is all about. In their classes, over the course of six hours or so, you and your intended make each other’s wedding rings by hand, from scratch, under the tutelage of experienced jewelers. Unless you want stones mounted in your bands (which the jeweler will do for you) you’ll walk away from the Wedding Ring Workshop with your rings in hand, ready for your wedding day.

Interested? While the Wedding Ring Workshop seems like a good bet – they’re in the U.S. and the U.K. and have a lot of participating jewelers – there are other DIY wedding rings opportunities out there. New York Wedding Ring comes to mind, as does The Devil’s Workshop in Toronto. Googling around will help you find one close-ish to you that has the range of service you’re looking for. Keep in mind that some DIY wedding ring classes don’t allow for a lot of customization, while others allow you design custom wedding rings as long as your design can be created in the allotted time.

Once upon a time, when marriage was more likely to be a financial arrangement than the joining of two hearts desperately in love, rings were pretty much only for the bride. She might or might not get a betrothal ring, and she wore the wedding ring. After all, he was the one with earthly goods to endow people with. Hers were… not hers. They were her father’s and the groom had probably already gotten that milk cow, interest in the family shipping business, or strategically important tract of land.

Of course, times change and symbols with them. Marriage became a more equitable and less businesslike proposition. Around World War Two, wedding rings for men became popular. Since then, the majority of men do wear wedding rings.

In fact, there are some parts of the world where men wear engagement rings, too. For instance, last month singer Michael Buble announced that he was wearing a ‘man-gagement’ ring, as is the custom in his bride-to-be’s native Argentina.

But neither an engagement nor a wedding ring is actually required on anyone. There are some professions where wearing a ring could be dangerous on the job. There are some men – and even some women, but it appears to be more common among men – who just plain don’t wear jewelry of any sort.

For instance, Mr. Twistie doesn’t have a wedding ring. When I asked him if he wanted one, he look about as though I’d just suggested he expose himself to my grandmother. For the record, I never suggested any such thing. Still, one look at that face and I told him not to worry about it. If he didn’t want a ring, that was fine by me. One less thing to buy suited me fine. And considering he doesn’t even wear a watch, it wasn’t a huge surprise to me.

But different people obviously feel differently on the subject. What are your thoughts on rings (engagement and wedding) for guys? Does your man wear a ring? Will he? Voluntarily? Whose choice was it? Does it matter if they match?
via

How sweet is this custom wedding ring that artist Luke Jerram designed for his wife? Along with local jeweler Tamrakar, he created the Portrait Projector ring, which contains a tiny photographic slide paired with a lens. Hod it up to a wee light source – like a mini flashlight or a candle flame – and the images contained within the ring are projected onto whatever is nearby.

Jerram made an equally fascinating engagement ring for his wife, which you can read about here. I’m like Jerram’s other works, too – particularly all of the neat gifts he’s made for people!