When Cristiana, first got in touch with me she said she had always liked the idea of having a traditional, plain, 18ct white gold wedding band, that was a little rounded and that Cris her partner wanted the same metal, just a wider, flatter band. What they both liked, was the idea of having something such as a special symbol, to link the two rings together.

I met with Cristiana first and we chatted about all the things that she and Cris love to do. I discovered their biggest passion is sailing. Cristiana has a small tattoo of 3 waves and was wondering if we could use this design, or something similar for their special symbol. I thought it was a great starting point and it didn’t take long for the inspiration to start flowing. I was very confident I could translate their deep connection with the ocean and sailing into their dream rings.

Cristiana is Italian and Cris is a Kiwi, even though she lives here in Auckland, they were planning to have their wedding back in Italy. I had one idea of taking the 3 waves and turning the first wave into a koru to represent New Zealand then having the second wave, stay a wave and blending into a third wave that symbolised Italy in some way. But between us we couldn’t come up with anything that worked. My problem was I have such a love of food that I couldn’t stop thinking of the wave being made out of spaghetti, so we decided to move on.

Because Cris was busy with his job, I had to get to know him through Cristiana. After I had finished their designs, we discovered that he had always imagined the symbols being engraved on the inside of their rings, not the outside. It’s so easy to not communicate details such as this, because you take it for granted, that we’d all be thinking the same thing.

Anyway, Cris had also been thinking more about the wave symbol and thought he may also like an anchor. I loved the idea that their love of sailing and the ocean, being expressed in two different ways, so I drew up a couple of new designs. I explained the difficulty of carving a design like an anchor onto the inside of the ring and how it would be a shame not to see it, so he agreed that so long as it wasn’t too big it should go on the outside.

The second meeting we had, Cristiana had found a shape of a ring that both herself and Crisloved. The cool thing about the square shaped ring is that your fingers prevent it from spinning around and so the design always stays on top.

The other thing I went over with Cristiana was do we set some stones into her ring? Cristiana liked the idea of having some aquamarines worked into her design. Aquamarines would have been the perfect connection to their ocean theme, except as aqua’s get smaller they lose their colour. So I suggested we look at blue diamonds instead, to achieve the look of water that she was after. The reason I recommended diamonds, is because they are both bright and sparkly even when they are really tiny, but as it turned out, we were unable to source the blue diamonds as small as 1mm in time for the wedding, so we started to consider using white diamonds instead.

I carved Cris and Cristiana waxes to try on. They double checked their finger sizes and widths, we made a couple of small adjustments and the waxes were ready for me to start carving their designs into. When they saw their finished waxes they were really excited, so I sent them off to the casters.

We had discussed their white metal options and they had chosen to go for Palladium. The castings came out really well, so they polished up beautifully.

Cristiana rang me one night because she didn’t know whether to have the diamonds set before the wedding. The date they were leaving for Italy was fast approaching and I could tell that having to decide whether to have diamonds or no diamonds at all, was just a bit too much with all the other planning she was doing. I told her the last thing she should be doing was worrying about something, when she didn’t have to. The ring looked fantastic already, even without the stones, and we could set the diamonds at a later date when things calmed down and she could think straight.

The cool thing that came out of the conversation that night was that her ring was now a work in progress. Just as their relationship develops, so will her ring. Now we’ll have enough time to source the tiny blue diamond’s, to celebrate their anniversary.  I will make sure I update you with a photo.

They left for Italy a very happy couple and I can’t wait to catch up with them when they get back and hear all about it.

It all started when I received an excited call from Rachael that she had just got engaged, but had absolutely no idea where to start to look for her engagement ring.

It always amazes me that there are so many women out there that don’t know what to do and have never considered the style of ring they would have when they did get engaged. I think I would actually be one of those women if I hadn’t been a jeweller.

We decided to meet up for coffee and a chat. I took along my book of sketches so that Rachael could see the sort of things that are possible and to get her all inspired.

We’d only got a few pages in when Rachael all of a sudden said “I love that one!” She pointed to a ring I’d designed but never made before which got me really excited.

I hate repeating a design and love having the opportunity to create a one off piece. I just knew from the sketch I was looking at, that this rings wow factor was going to be totally off the chart.

Rachael just oozes style, and is a beautiful, strong woman who is an exceptionally talented photographer, (check out www.rachaelhale.com, but not until you’ve finished reading this.) It’s my job to make sure that this design was going to become a ring that only Rachael could wear.

So we talked about metal options, she knew without a doubt that she wanted her ring made from a white metal but didn’t want anything polished or too white. So we agreed that if we left the rhodium plating off, the natural colour of 18ct white gold was going to give us the affect she was after. I just knew that what we were dreaming up was going to be amazing.

All that was left to talk about was the stones. Straight away Rachael told me she didn’t like diamonds. If you are thinking, ’what do you mean you don’t like diamonds!?’ There are actually a few women out there who don’t, believe it or not. 

I had to double check though, because from where I was sitting chocolate and cognac diamonds were going to be the perfect complement to Rachael’s colouring, and would make the piece totally unique. As it turned out, it was white diamonds she didn’t like, and she had no idea that they even came in other colours.

Cognac and chocolate diamonds aren’t as widely available as white diamonds, but I was able to source 3 stones for Rachael to choose from. Then I set about making the ring, getting the finger size right on such a heavy, wide ring is always tricky and the last thing I wanted to do was size it once the stones were set. I knew Rachael loved to wear wide rings, which was good because this ring was going to make a real statement.

We decided to make the 2 bands on the outside of the ring Rachael’s wedding rings because it was already such a wide ring she would never fit another ring on her finger. The most important thing now was to make the engagement ring because the engagement party was only a week away. ...

At Rachael and Andy’s engagement party, her sister turned around to me and said that the ring was so Rachael and that she had always been into medieval things while she was growing up. I knew Rachael had wanted the ring to look really old but she’d never mentioned her love of medieval designs, even though somehow I’d managed to capture a medieval feel into her ring, which was really cool. The engagement party was so much fun. Everybody raved about the ring and how stunning it looked on her. All I could think was you wait till the wedding bands go next to it.

I bumped into a great couple, Liz and Craig; I had made their engagement and wedding rings a few years ago. When Rachael and Andy got engaged they’d recommended she go to the jeweller who had made their rings, but Rachael told them she already had a jeweller, as it turned we were one and the same.

Next it was Andy’s turn. When he’d seen Rachael’s ring he said he wanted to use the same design but different, I knew what he meant. We discussed the shape and width that he liked, which was a narrower flat band without the diamonds, and how we were going to apply the pattern.

It’s always hard for both men and women know the right words to use to be able to articulate exactly what they want and to visualise how the finished ring is going to look. So I got stuck into carving Andy a wax and emailed them a picture of it. When I got the O.K it went off to the casters.

I polished up the ring and Andy and I got together to check the finger size and the final details. When we put Andy’s and Rachael’s rings up against each other, the design on Andy’s ring looked very modern. We also realised that without the stones the design looked very Polynesian which wasn’t what we had been after. We realised that what the ring needed was some diamonds, so we set three in, but that still wasn’t enough so we decided we needed to add some more.

They had a joint Hen and Stag do, very untraditional I know, but very Rachael and Andy. All of a sudden they asked me if I would like to be the ring bearer. Wow, what an honour, of course I said yes! 

I put the finishing touches to Andy’s ring, I bevelled the edges, carved more of the metal away and oxidised the metal to give it that old feel. I thought it looked fantastic but I was still so nervous turning up to their wedding, without having had the opportunity to show the groom all the changes I had made to his ring.

I knew they had faith in me but I was very grateful for the glass of champagne I received as I walked into the garden.

Everything went silent and Rachael appeared, she looked stunning! All of a sudden the celebrant requested the rings; my heart was racing as I walked up and placed the rings on the pillow.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about. The smile on Rachael’s face when she saw Andy’s ring said it all. I don’t think I stopped smiling after that. The whole day was just amazing, we all had so much fun it was just a shame the day had to end. I’ll cherish those memories forever.