Designing Our Own Wedding Bands Part 1

One of the single most annoying advertising campaigns I have ever been subjected to in my life has to be the horrifically stupid "He went to Jared's!" engagement ring commercials that have swamped television sets across America over the past few years.  The phrase itself is grating to the point of frustration.

As the months have passed and Katelyn and I find ourselves getting closer and closer to the big day, we've begun to think about exactly what we're going to do for our wedding bands.  The diamond engagement ring was "easy" enough, since I presented Katelyn with the Jabel heirloom ring passed down from my late paternal grandmother, but both Katelyn and myself knew that we wanted our wedding bands to be something personal from our own experience together.  After a quick perusal of the typical wedding stores at the mall--even going to Jared's in Portland, Maine for kicks--we decided that the wedding bands would have much more meaning to both of us if we had something designed ourselves.

After some online searching, Katelyn turned up a ring style known as "Mobius rings," which feature a twisted ring pattern.  She even went so far as to order a cheap sterling silver version of the ring to see how it would look when paired with her engagement ring:

The Proposal Story

Now that introductions have been made, I can move on to the event that has turned me into a Groom-to-Be.

On a few occasions during the summer of 2009, Katelyn and I had discussed the potential possibility of eventually getting married to one another.  On two separate occasions, we actually asked each other to marry (me first, her second), but without a ring or a sense of reality to these proposals, we just carried on as always.

As the month of August began approaching and our impending trip together to South Carolina got closer and closer, I began to think seriously about proposing with a real ring: my grandmother's engagement ring from my dad's side of the family.  I didn't want to propose while we were in South Carolina because we were down there for a wedding already: the marriage between Katelyn's cousin Ryan and his wife Cheryl.  I thought it would be tacky and vain to propose while we were on vacation for that purpose, so I waited.