Six months prior to the proposal of renewal I lost my mother, Sally, suddenly to undiagnosed multiple myeloma. Sally was truly my best girlfriend and her death was a shock to my system, to all that I loved and knew to be true. She adored Kip (my husband of 21 years at this point in history) and he knew that she would be so pleased to know that he wanted to renew our marriage vows!
Part of our planning included a NEW wedding ring! What?! Yes, I know, I was gifted Sally's wedding ring set from my father Chris. I knew instantly I wanted to include her stone and essence in to my new wedding ring.
We made an appointment with Andrew to share our story, vision and stones available for this project. Wow, what a cool guy Andrew is, so chill and a Christian husband and father of two. He was actually pregnant for his second one when we started the process and the ring was completed after the birth, which was very cool to see this gorgeous family grow as we did business with them.
Back to OUR story:
Kip and I had a few ideas to start with for this wedding ring.
1. We wanted to showcase my engagement diamond and my mother's. Without her engagement, there would be no "me" engagement right?!
2. We wanted a NEW large stone to represent the two becoming one flesh.
3. We wanted to tell a story of growth, legacy and future of our family.
4. AND We wanted to express our love and faith to God.
Easy Breezy right?! BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAA!!!
I do believe that Andrew might have privately spoken whispers of Kip and I as Crazy! Sorta like we used to refer to a nightmare design client, "Oh my goodness, they want it all, but still simple, clean and easy to understand." Sure no problem, I can make all of your dreams come true. Andrew is and was a professional. He listened, looked, listened, designed, listened, redesigned and well we paid him some more and he listened and then he NAILED it! We couldn't have imagined a more stunning and meaningful piece of jewelry. It truly is the most beautiful thing I have every worn in my life.
This was our wants in the design:
1. We wanted to showcase my engagement diamond and my mother's.
The lower left hand stone is my engagement diamond, the upper right hand stone is Sally's.
2. We wanted a NEW large stone to represent the two becoming one flesh.
The center baguette cut light blue topaz stone is to represent 2 becoming 1 flesh. Kip and I were both were born in December so we share this birthstone.
3. We wanted to tell a story of growth, legacy and future of our family.
The two green stones are shaped like leaves because they grew from our love. These represent our two daughters lives. The two tapered baguette cut diamonds next to each leaf represent our daughters future spouses (of which have been prayed for the entire lives of our daughters) These two stones come from my grandmother's ring.
4. AND We wanted to express our love and faith to God.
In Genesis 15:5 Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”
Our original wedding bands had tiny round cut diamonds in them 14 total. We designed them to go from raised to inlayed in the band to represent the stars in the sky. Our prayer for our marriage this that our love can produce a great fruit for HIS kingdom. Not just a fruit of children and family, but a fruit of faith, love, influence, caring and sharing of the Good News of Jesus Christ!
We'd like to thank Walt Alton for the introduction to Andrew (his grandson), thank you to Andrew at Art's Jewelers for his talent, patience and beautiful craftsmanship. We'd also like to thank Chris Mendola for giving us the stones to create this heritage piece. Chris was the catalyst for this blog entry so the story of this ring will not die but be shared and cherished.
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