Weddingbee Blog

We found our wedding ring designer by accident. Two years before we were even engaged, Mr E was visiting me in Nelson and gave me a pretty little sapphire promise ring (yes, I am obsessed with sapphires) to replace the cheap cubic zirconia one I had been wearing until he bough the proper one. He hadn’t known my ring size when he bought it, so it was much too loose. Easily fixed, or so we thought. We assumed we could just take it down to any old jewelry store in town and it would be fixed in a day or two (we were both leaving the country in a week so we needed it fast!). Unfortunately, every store we tried told us that it would have to be sent away for resizing, take two weeks at least to come back, and cost $60 or more. These were not the kind of answers we were looking for.

Finally, a sweet lady at one store told us about Glen James, who designs and creates custom jewelry.

Apparently he also does a lot of the resizing and repair work for some of the main jewelry stores in town, and he probably could do it faster than they said it would take if we went to him direct. His workshop/store is tucked down a little alleyway so we got lost twice trying to find it at first. When we eventually found the entrance, we followed signs that led us up a cramped staircase, and to a big steel door. That was locked. There was a button with a sign instructing us to press it and as we did we heard a buzzer go off inside, a man’s voice told us to come in over a speaker and the door unlocked. It was very tempting to tiptoe inside but we put on our brave faces and went in trying to look nonchalant. Glen James, however, was (and is) as friendly as they come once we got inside, and we immediately felt at ease. His studio was filled with rings and other jewelry that he had made. It turns out that he specializes in creating unique wedding rings, engagement rings and such for couples. You know those people who you can tell straight away that their work isn’t just work to them, but it is their art and passion? Well, he is one of them. Anyway, long story short, he resized the ring for us that afternoon for only $20, and slowly but surely the wheels started turning in my head regarding wedding rings.

Which brings us to February this year, when Mr E and I were back in Nelson for a few days, right after we had officially got engaged. Straight away I made plans to go see Glen and start figuring out what we wanted our rings to look like. I had always assumed that I would just have a plain gold band, but after seeing some of Glen’s designs I decided to go with something a little different, while still keeping it simple. For Mr E we liked the idea of a Celtic knot design around the band. Glen was more than helpful with pinning down our hazy ideas and working with our budget to get exactly what we wanted.

As a student of English literature and linguistics, it is obvious that I love words. So we decided to use that love to honour both our cultures through our wedding rings. Glen inscribed “Tu es meu amor” on my ring: the Portuguese for “you are my love,” as Mr E is part Portuguese. On his we incorporated “Siorghra” (”Eternal love” in Celtic) to recognize my Irish heritage.

How did they turn out? See for yourself:

Photo courtesy of Glen James Jewellers

I would show you a pic of mine on my finger next to my engagement bling but Mr E is hiding it from me until the wedding because he knows I won’t be able to resist trying it on all the time!

When we picked the rings up from Glen, they were even better than I expected and my dad was so impressed that he decided to get my mum an eternity ring (something she has been wanting for AGES) right then and there. As Glen says, “you’re either going to love me or hate me,” and I think it is clear which of those categories we fall into. By the way, if there are any couples out there who would love custom designed rings but are afraid of the expense, we found that getting rings designed instead of buying them ready-made probably saved us around $1000. Not bad, aye? The trick is to find a jeweler you trust and “click” with and then the whole “experience” is just that much more fun (and trust me, I’m all for making wedding planning fun!).

How did you find your wedding rings? Have you stumbled across the perfect vendor completely by accident?