By: Dean Shainin
This is the one memorabilia of your wedding that you will have to live with the rest of your life. It is expected to stay on your finger up to the time when your knees will buckle though your waist won't. When your mind tells your feet to move but your feet won't.
My wife made sure that I get replacements for every wedding ring that somehow I lost. At a bar, at the motel, while washing my hands in a restaurant, at a high school reunion. Now I am an authority on wedding rings.
Wedding rings are testaments of the enduring passion that we live and die for, that we take joy and suffer for, the testament to what is noble in us. This thing that even the emotional part in us can not take for granted. Love.
Wedding rings have been taken to symbolize our connection with what is sacred and enduring. It also means something rare, beautiful and precious. Traits that married couples work out to give to each other. The circle of the wedding ring itself stands for continuity and perpetuity. Artisans have been inspired by the idea that today even with the changes in technology, even when traditions can be compromised in the name of modernity, the idea of the wedding ring as a vital part of the union remain unchanged. Wedding rings are the highlights to any wedding.
A good wedding ring should be easy and practical to wear, it should be durable enough to stand the abuse it can take over the years and it must look good on the finger.
Diamond rings are the most enduring of all gemstones. It is the most coveted although the least affordable. A diamond ring can last forever, unchanged, if proper care is given to it. It may be the hardest of all substances yet a diamond can scratch another diamond. When not in use, it should be kept in its own box.
Wedding rings however do not have to be costly if the couple can not afford it. The symbolism of the ring remains the same.
Blue stands for spirituality and purity. Famous among the blue gemstone are the sapphire, the blue tourmaline, the blue iolite and the blue spinel. The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Anne and Lady Diana all received sapphire rings.
Ruby signifies fire. It symbolizes the heart and the passion for life. There are still less expensive red gemstones that represent the same symbolism. The red spinel, the red tourmaline and the red garnet. Princess Sarah Ferguson received a ruby.
Green gemstones signify faithfulness and continuity. Choices here will include the emerald, the green tourmaline and the green garnet.
The pearl itself is associated with love and wedding long before other gemstones have been connected its representations.
The circle can be intertwined in two colors (for example white and yellow gold) to symbolize the union.
In as much as it can be afforded, wedding rings should never be scrimped upon. It is not only an enduring tradition born out of our search for what is eternal in us, it is also what will remain with us after everything else has passed.
We still wear it even if everyone else has already forgotten.
This is also the reason why today, decades after; I am still wearing my last wedding ring - in her memory.
