Friday 23 January 2009

The ring that binds us

One of the happiest days of my life was when Honey popped the magical question “will you marry me?” I knew it would be the start of my very own fairy tale coming true. As momentous as the wedding is for both of us, we considered the symbols which stood witness to our big day vital and so have given them a lot of thought and attention, the chord, the veil, the array and most importantly our wedding bands. Seven months before the wedding, I remember we were on our way home from our Valentine’s date, we passed by one of the shops of one of the biggest jewelers in Dubai. Being the sale fanatic that I am, I immediately noticed their promotional banners saying that all diamonds are on sale. It was a woman’s instinct (after all diamonds are our best friend), I asked Honey if we could check out the jewelries on sale.

Upon entering, the very nice sales man approached us and asked if we wanted anything in particular. My mom already promised that she would give me a pair of earrings that I should use for the wedding so I thought this might be the best opportunity to look for a bracelet or necklace to go with it, after all the diamonds were on sale, what better excuse to have than that. While browsing through the very beautiful collection, the sales man noticed the engagement ring that I was wearing, he said that it was very beautiful and remembers it as part of the store’s limited collection design and at that point were no longer for sale. That was the time when I remembered that indeed the box of the second engagement ring that Honey has given me bears the name of this store. Then it hit me, maybe we could also check out their collection of wedding bands.

He gave us the first tray of wedding bands which contains normal, nothing to fancy, plain, old style, traditional wedding rings in gold and white gold. I asked if there were more and he presented another tray of fancier wedding rings, some has etched design, others were two-toned still others were three-toned but still nothing that struck my fancy. Perhaps, noticing that we still hadn’t found what we were looking for, the sales man offered us another tray of wedding bands while saying “these bands are not traditional, maybe this is what you are looking for.” And indeed it was, the moment he laid the tray in front of us, this magnificent pair of white gold rings adorned with diamonds just stood out and caught my attention. Honey and I looked at each other and we both knew that this was it, we found our wedding ring.
(our first wedding rings... simply beautiful)

Finally, on that faithful day of September, my prince charming slipped that very same ring onto my finger where the engagement ring has been patiently waiting the entire year. It was pure magic.

Two years of marital bliss, our love has strengthened more than ever and married life proved to be more than I could ever hope for. However, on our way to our second wedding anniversary, due to unforeseen circumstances, one of our wedding rings got loss somehow and as much as it pains Honey and me to let go for it was the symbol of our love and has stood witness to our first years as man and wife, we had to move on and find the perfect ring to replace it, a ring that symbolizes our covenant of eternal love.

As if faith was on our side, we were showing a visiting friend around a touristy village in Amsterdam a couple of weeks before we celebrate our 2nd anniversary, without even the slightest of intentions to buy another pair of wedding rings for we already eyed a pair we saw online but we couldn’t find a pair sold locally, we chanced upon this quaint jewelry shop. The very same thing happened as when we were looking for our first wedding bands, there was something about the shop that invited me to come in so I asked Honey if we could go in and from then on, we never looked back. We found this simple, elegant yet unique pair of white gold wedding band adorned with several small diamonds and one bigger one. It was just perfect!



After engraving our name, the owner of the shop himself gave us the rings and said: “This will be the ring that will bind you for the next 20 years to come.” Hopefully, the jeweler is wrong on that, I do hope and pray that this will be the ring that binds us till forever.



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Excess: our ever reliable community priest, Father Yacou to blessed the wedding bands in time for us to wear them on our 2nd anniversary.

- this post has been delayed for soooo long due to lack of a good picture. Finally i managed to take a shot that i like.

5 comments:

joshuaongys said...

awwwwww thats soooo nice....

Anonymous said...

wow... it is really amazing how small things like rings build up wonderful love stories and great relationships.

I am married for 7 years now and hubby and I planned to get a new set of wedding rings. Your first wedding bands were so nice.. I like it!

Kreez said...

hey naomi, i love, love, love our first wedding bands, i still wear mine actually (on my other ring finger together with my first engagement ring).

good luck with finding the perfect wedding bands for you and hubby.

Anonymous said...

The last photo is awesome. I like much that pair of rings.

Kreez said...

wits, i really like that shot as well, i just noticed that this orchid of mine had flowers that morning and i knew i had to use it as a holder for the rings...

i love these new rings they're very simple, yet elegant.