Eeeeeee.... Wedding rings!

If that clicks bigger, it's our tracking page for the wedding rings. Eee.

I thought I would have a few days to get ready once she shipped them, but no... tomorrow. Eee.

So I guess I should go through the ring story...

So we went to Birks, mainly because I figured they would be a good place to get Mike sized (I already know my size- 4 3/8) and to get him to try rings on to see what he liked best in terms of widths, metals, styles and whatnot. We went to the downtown location on Ste. Catherine Street because we figured they'd have the most selection. Man, the service was bad. Nobody had any interest in serving us at all. The salespeople were actively avoiding us when we were clearly standing by the wedding rings, waiting. When I asked about a wedding ring to fit my engagement ring, the salesguy we grabbed, who was riddled with the most gaudy of mismatched jewelry imaginable and who seemed so annoyed with having to serve us, looked at my ring from afar and said, "That's not from Birks? No, we can't accommodate that ring." So, being that I was already so annoyed, I probably looked at him like he was dumb (I have a really bad poker face) and probably said something sarcastic to which he replied, "Well, you could get one made, but that's with the designer, not my department." I asked where I find out about this designer and he gestured to customer service at the other end of the store and repeated that it wasn't his department. 

Oh, and to size Mike, he felt his finger, squeezing the sides of it and was all, "Yeah, I'd say a ten." Seriously, dude? That's your professionalism? We asked him about types of metal, and he clearly stereotyped Mike as a construction worker (wtf, he's a chef), and started giving us bad advice based on construction work because "clearly," he worked in construction. I honestly can't even remember what the advice was because at that point, between his sickening pavé diamond carpeted mixed metal over-jewelry and his bad attitude, there was nothing worth learning from this guy.

Anyway, so we went to the service counter, where the girl didn't speak a word of English but refused to admit it and told us the designer's last appointment slot was at 4:30PM. "Can you see if the designer is available now? We live pretty far away," I said. "No, it's after four thirty," she said. I looked at my watch. It was something like 4:20 and the designer's schedule in front of us was clearly empty. She begrudgingly called and nobody answered. She asked if I wanted to book an appointment and at that point, we just wanted to leave and never go back in there ever again, so I fakely took her card and said I'd call.

We left there angry and ranted about how cruddy the service was for at least the four blocks to the car and probably another twenty minutes once we were in the car. Holy crap, you know? Sure, we don't look like money, but we were ready to spend whatever we had to to get really good quality wedding rings. Everybody, regardless of demographic, buys wedding rings. Everybody intends for them to last. So really, when you see somebody shopping for a wedding ring, especially if there is already an engagement ring on the girl's finger, smarten up and serve them because more than anybody else in your store at any given moment, soon-to-be-marrieds are definitely making a ring purchase in the next few months. Two even!

Just pathetic.

When we got home, I ranted on twitter and facebook and the two of us vowed never to buy anything at Birks again. Instead, I searched ebay for vintage rings and found a few I liked and searched etsy too, and finally, after literally spending hours, if not fractions of several days, looking, I found a shop on etsy that seemed to make custom rings that were really, really pretty. The ad I found originally was this one. I researched a bit more and found that Ravens' Refuge uses recycled metals (bonus!) and their feedback (you should read it) is so, so awesome, and when I showed Mike, we were both in agreement that these were the people we wanted to make our rings. 

I sent them a few pictures of my ring, one of which had measurements all over it to give them an idea of the sizes we were working with and I waited and hoped they'd respond and say they could do it. A couple of days went by and I got the best email ever from Laura, the wifey of the guy (Dan) who makes the rings. 

After a million exchanges (almost not an exaggeration), we hammered out the details, she advised me on what metal to choose (so much easier than Birks and her explanations made sense- to the point where we got the rings in a completely different metal than we intended) and she put an ad up just for us so we could finalize the transaction. But the thing is, there were some things we never discussed but that she just somehow knew, which was so awesome. The finish in the ad I had asked about is closer to their pebbled hammering or cobblestone hammering (I can't tell which right now because I'm too sleepy), but in our final ad, she specified waterfall hammering, which is sort of strips of hammering instead of the tinier flat bits, and creates a waterfall illusion when it moves through the light. She totally nailed it somehow, even though I hadn't specified the finish and the waterfall one was actually exactly what we wanted. Here's an example of the waterfall finish if you want to see the difference. 

Get it though? He proposed by a waterfall and we're getting waterfall rings? And they're banged up, just like us, and they're perfect, just like us?

Teehee.

Anyway, after another billion exchanges about how exactly to do my ring, we decided maybe it'd be best if I sent them a mold of my ring. So they sent me the materials to do two molds and so I did those the night I received them after meticulously watching their online video tutorials and rushed them back to the mail the next day. They used those to make a cast or whatever to make a bronze ring to fit my wedding ring onto. We decided that instead of having my ring cut out of my engagement ring (so that it'd sit flat on top of it), the ring was going to be nubbly and wobbly and stay the same width all the way around, but follow the bizarre and overly complicated curves of my engagement ring. 

I honestly have no idea what it'll look like. I got a sketch a couple of months ago before we decided to do the molds, so I don't know if he stuck to the sketch or used some artistic freedom or license or whatever you call it, so we'll see. I'm kinda nervous about it because somehow, I think it would be hard to make a ring that fits my engagement ring and looks good. 

Regardless though, I know for sure that Mike's ring is beautiful (a ring similar to his is in pictures, basically this but in 14K X1 white gold) and they were really awesome to work with (I don't know how she didn't get impatient with me) and (!!) they're sending Mike a tiny copper bee too because they did a cast of a real bee (who died of natural causes) and created a whole bunch of bees for an artist's sculpture and I asked if we could get one too and they obliged (because they're awesome?!), so really, however my ring ended up, this experience was so, so much better than we could have hoped for. So yey.

I mean, hopefully I'll adore it too, but at this point, on the eve of getting it (hopefully), I'm trying not to worry about it. I have to trust people at some point, right? And they've been so awesome all along and they produce beautiful stuff, so seriously, Princess, shhh.

:D

So yeah. If you need a wedding ring, even if it's just a regular one, or even other rings because they do crazy stuff for engagement rings and whatnot too, I highly recommend them. The service, the price, the humble and patient communication, the ethics, the fact that they use recycled metals and the fact that never once did they sell me a thing even when it was so clear I had no idea what I was doing or what I really wanted, yeah, I so recommend them.

They have their etsy shop, a facebook page, a flickr and a blog (there's a better description of the types of hammering on there too and a few pictures of the bees).

So yeah. Hopefully, after all this, I do like my ring. Hehe. :D Obviously, I'll post pictures if we get them tomorrow. (Guaranteed! haha..)

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

eta: Oh! I almost forgot. An added bonus for us, well, me in particular, is that Ravens' Refuge's logo is so pretty (native arty) and from what I've seen, they stamp the inside of the rings with it. So that's super awesome too.

UPDATE! New post here with pictures. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...