August 31, 2007

Metal

The ring on the left is the new ring. The ring on the right, the old.

My partner and I will be celebrating the start of our umpteenth year together in a few months, and sometime last year we started looking at rings.

We already had rings, a set that we had designed and had custom-made for us by the fabulous Henri David in Philadelphia back in 1990-something.

We loved our rings. Wore them every day. But one of my favorite things about living outside the mainstream is all the opportunities I'm given for intentional re-invention.

Why should I wear one ring forever? If shopping for rings together once was fun, why not shop for a new set?

We grinned and flirted our way through the whole thing; it was worth it just to bask in the remembered glow of that "let's tell the world we mean it" feeling.

So fifteen years on, we're officially domestically partnered. Our son is legally ours. But we've never had a ceremony. We're not married, and we're not civil unionized, because, well for one thing, the whole civil union thing is turning out to not be as good as marriage after all (what a SHOCK!). Most people won't notice our new rings, but for us, it's never been about other people.

The only question now is, what will we do with the first set of rings?

(Thanks to Shari of the glass doorknob
for her elements springboard.)

8 comments:

Carolee said...

i really like the design of the new rings! and congrats on your anniverary.

hubby and i will celebrate 15 years in 2010. we're thinking about doing the same thing. for many reasons. but i hadn't considered the fact that it would be just plain romantic! thanks!

PixieDust said...

Congratulations! 15 years... how lovely... my husband and I celebrated our 5th this year.

:-)

My revelation came much the same as yours while trying to figure out what to post for metal... Smack to the forehead! OH! Our rings!

Beautiful rings... thanks for sharing.

Wendy said...

oh hooray hooray. happy anniversary.

Unknown said...

Awe, to have that excited bliss of ring shopping. I barely remember when we did ours. I believe my husband was more picky than I was. I didn't want stones or diamonds, I just wanted a plain gold band. Scott felt it was wrong to have just plain bands, so we had to find the perfect compromise I would be comfortable with. I am a simple gal, nothing fancy is needed.

Congrats on fifteen years!! Scott and I will have been together for ten years in December, but married five in August of this year. Doesn't it all feel like it just all happened yesterday, and then there are days where you can barely remember life outside of this relationship because it has been forever??

You know that is love when you can say that! As with the rings?? HHHmmm, I dunno. What would be an original yet loving way to do something with them? Lots of different stuff on the Internet, something will be bound to pop up soon!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Congratulations! They look lovely rings! No idea what to do with the old ones though.

I think the fact that the mainstream doesn't allow for intentional re-invention is probably at the base for a lot of individuals' problems

Moti and Amanda said...

What beautiful rings!

My thought is that there is very likely a couple out there who would love to use rings, but can't afford them. I don't know how you'd find such a couple...

But -- you could also sell the rings on ebay, and donate the proceeds to charity -- my new favorite one is modestneeds.org -- they give small amounts of money to people who have some sort of emergency cash flow issue. Here's the link to them: http://www.modestneeds.org/
and here's the link on how to donate via ebay: http://www.modestneeds.org/donation/options/

-a(frog)d,k00

angie said...

the rings are gorgeous - what a great idea to get new ones, I love that. Congratulations on your 15th anniversary, fantastic in every sense and well-worthy of a lovely celebration. Best wishes to you both!

Let's see... could the old rings be melted into an earring for each of you? charms? pendants?

Rainy said...

Why not wear them both? One on each hand? Or save them for your son some day... But I do love the idea above of giving them away to some other couple, if you can bear to part with them.