Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A tale of two rings

Do not be fooled by the title. This is not a tale of me getting another engagement ring, but rather how we came to end up with only two rings in the wedding process, rather than the usual three.

Yes, the custom currently is for three rings - engagement and wedding for the bride, and wedding for the groom. I've blogged about my engagement ring already, so I won't keep you hanging. The "missing" ring is the groom's.

Whilst it is not and never will be present, we don't actually consider it "missing." Other people do, and we've already had a few comments about it. As most people don't even know yet, I suspect we'll get a few more, including (unfortunately) some on the day itself.

Gadget does not want to wear a ring. The only jewellery he wears is a watch, and he considers this a gadget rather than jewellery! Quite early in our relationship, this somehow came up in conversation. I told him it was his decision, and if he didn't want one I was ok with it. Fast forward to the current day, and he is sticking with his decision - as am I. No ring for him, no problem for me.

It is, at most, a symbol of our relationship. He does't need to wear a ring to demonstrate his commitment to me. Plenty of men do not have rings (including Gadget's Dad, I think), and many of my colleagues from different cultural and religious backgrounds don't share this fourth-finger-left-hand tradition. If it wasn't for the comments, it would be a non-issue. I'm not sure I can ban it as a topic of conversation on the day though!

I have my wedding ring; we ordered it at the same time as my engagement ring. As that's the only thing it has to match, it seemed the sensible thing to do. I hear rumours that it's bad luck, but never mind. It's a plain platinum flat band - the whole 'no stones at work' issue again. (Note: I changed jobs today and it looks like I will actually be able to wear my ring in my job for the next six months! How exciting!)

The Church of England ceremony, from what I can tell, allows us to say "I give you this ring" and "I receive this ring." That suggests to me that the custom of both parties wearing a ring is not that old. Plus, if the church is ok with it, I think everyone else can manage!

2 comments:

Ainhoa @ALittleBite said...

We both bought rings, (only wedding bands – no engagement rings in Spain! nor proposals, for that matter) but we're not sure we'll be wearing since neither of us are ring people. We still wanted to have rings though, even if they ended up in the nightstand. To each his own!

H said...

"to each his own" - never a truer word said! why can't everyone think like that?

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