With this ring

We decided the time had come to purchase our wedding rings. We arranged this to coincide with the valuation for insurance of my engagement ring and went to the jewellers in Winchester which had resized my engagement ring.

We were greeted by a lovely lady who took us to a desk and started by asking if we had any ideas of what we wanted. As it happened we did. My engagement ring is quite sparkly and I felt a simple ring would best compliment it. Thus the search began. Two trays of wedding rings were produced. We started off with my ring. The ring I ended up with was fairly similar to that which I had envisaged. The two differences were that it is slightly more rounded than I had expected. I had thought I might get squarer edges but they neither suited my finger nor my engagement ring. The other difference is that I unwillingly accepted the advice of everybody I had spoken to and my ring will be made of white gold rather than platinum. 

Then it was James' turn. As a result of his eczema and the obvious potential for jewellery to aggravate his skin, not to mention his liberal use of lotions and potions the ring needed to be able to withstand a lot. The categorical answer from the jeweller was that it needed to be in platinum. He ended up with a wider version in a similar style to mine. He was slightly surprised at the width he went for but we were all in agreement that it was better suited to his hand. 

Thus our decision was made. The next decision was what to have engraved on the inside. We had already agreed on a quote that will go inside both our rings. Unfortunately I won't be able to reveal what that quote is as it would be a key to some aspect of the wedding that we won't be revealing until the day. 

The slightly more painful decision was to pay for them before we left. Turns out men's wedding rings in platinum are quite expensive. The lady kindly have us a 10% discount if we paid up though and so we did. 

The rings are being made especially for us. Mine will be hand finished and the engraving on the inside will be in script form and done by laser. They should be ready for pick up in 6-8 weeks. Plenty of time before the wedding. James has been advised to wear his in a little before the wedding to get used to the concept of wearing a ring. Naturally I am already used to it. Apparently my engagement ring has a very good 'wed fit'. 

The other bonuses of the day were receiving a celebratory glass of champagne. We also get my ring engraved for free. My engagement ring turned out to be valued much higher than we expected, although to me it will always be priceless, and as a bonus they did a formal valuation of James' watch. 

The jeweller also suggested a novel twist to having Sammy as a ring bearer that will fit in beautifully with our Scottish theme. All will become clear in time.