The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings (64 page)

Make no mistake about it: a wedding ring makes you visible.

You have a lot of choices when it comes to buying wedding rings online or through the mail; you'll see ads in gay magazines, the Gayellow Pages, and on the websites: “a full line of contemporary commitment ring designs for when you've met the man of your dreams.…” Purchasing via this method can be both a time- and a money-saver.

If you're not buying in person and aren't sure of your ring size, you can ask for a ring gauge from the vendor. Some online vendors will put your credit card number on hold and ship you out samples.

But take a deep breath and think seriously about the two of you walking into your favorite jewelry store, in person, and picking out your wedding rings together. Based on the couples we interviewed, we can almost guarantee you an Experience, because over the years, we've collected more great stories about rings than on any other subject. And we've never heard of a single case where a couple were treated disrespectfully or rudely by a jeweler or shop owner.

Going into a jewelry store, standing in front of the display cases, and looking at the dazzling array of rings is almost a
rite de passage
in and of itself. You can stand there and think of the unbroken line of other couples—probably overwhelmingly heterosexuals, but that's okay, you're changing that—who stood in the same spot, flushed with excitement, thinking of their futures together. Well, you can have it too.
Carpe diem,
kids, and don't let anybody stop you.

One of the other great things about doing this in person is that you can make all of those classic comments as you try the rings on—you know, things like, “I want it to be one size too big so I can get it off in a hurry.” Think of how impressed the salesperson will be that you can be just as silly and juvenile as any heterosexual couple.

My partner and I went to a jewelry store in Chinatown in San Francisco to buy rings for our commitment ceremony. We knew we'd get a good deal there, but we were really nervous about getting a reaction to the fact that we're lesbians, so we decided to be really low-key about it. We walked in and told the clerk that we wanted to buy some plain gold bands. He said, “Ah, yes, you want wedding rings!”

—Kit Cherry

White or yellow 14-karat or 18-karat is the most commonly used gold for wedding bands today, but what do color and karats mean?

First of all, do you remember seeing gold on the periodic table of the elements in your seventh-grade science room—atomic number 79, symbol “Au”? Well, that element in its pure form is way too soft for jewelry; you'd be molding your ring like Silly Putty. So they take pure gold and alloy it with other metals (platinum, nickel, zinc, copper, iron, even aluminum) for strength. And which of these other metals are used determines the color of the gold—white, yellow, rose-colored, and so on. They can make red gold, black gold, green gold, and—yes, lavender lovers—even purple gold.

Okay, now what about those karat things? When you're dealing with gold,
karat
means one-twenty-fourth—so 24-karat gold is pure gold, and 12-karat gold is half gold and half whatever. (You should definitely be suspicious of that guy on the street corner trying to sell you a 28-karat gold ring.)

But does your wedding ring have to be a simple gold band? Nah, it can be any material you choose, in any design you choose. When Cindy Crawford married Richard Gere in a quickie Las Vegas ceremony in 1992, the couple exchanged aluminum-foil rings. (Of course, Richard later upgraded Cindy's by giving her not one, not two, but three gold bands.) But our point is this: your wedding ring, symbol of your everlasting love, should be whatever you want it to be.

If you don't like anything you find in the stores, or if you want something unique, you can design your own rings. A good jeweler can help you, either from a verbal description or a rough sketch; he'll then make a wax sample for you to approve.

The wedding rings worn by Tess and Jane were custom-made by San Francisco artist Jeanine Payer, who often uses photographs in her jewelry. Tess's ring has a tiny tiny photo of Jane as a baby, in a little glass box that sits between two gold wings; Jane's ring has a baby Tess. Jane told us: “What better thing to be between two angel wings than a baby picture? It's the purest part of each other, so that whenever we have a fight or one of us wakes up in the morning with foul breath and lines
under the eyes, a quick glance at the ring reminds us of what we fell in love with to begin with.” Some other custom designs we have come across:

THEN
&
NOW

That Was
THEN
:

When same-sex ceremonies were in their early days, it wasn't uncommon for couples to choose matching rings with overt gay symbolism; many fingers sported rings with rainbows or rings with interlocking triangles.

This Is
NOW
:

Gays and lesbians who opt for custom designs are leaning toward a look that expresses something very specific about their relationship, something personal. It may be as simple as their two names or as abstract as a representation of the skyline of the city where they met.

For years, Bob and Jeff had been wearing inexpensive copper rings they bought on a trip to Morocco. When they decided to have a public ceremony, they had the copper rings encased in gold, called the celebration a “Spring Ring Thing” and billed it on the invitations as “exchanging copper for gold.”

Judy and Crystal got exquisite matching rings… tattooed on their ring fingers. More and more adventurous couples are doing the same, opting for the wedding ring that you know will never come off or get lost. The downside is that if the relationship dissolves, the tattoo doesn't. You'll have to be willing to live with the ring, go through painful and expensive tattoo removal, or find a way to modify the design.

Bob and Rod's rings are platinum, but Rod's has a one-quarter gold leaf overlay and Bob's has a three-quarter gold leaf overlay, making each one incomplete without the other.

You can also find antique rings or use rings that are family heirlooms. (If you go the heirloom route, make certain that your beloved is as crazy about the ring as your grandmother was; if it's truly a family treasure, consider making a prenuptial agreement that it must be returned if—God forbid—you should ever split up.)

The other great thing about rings is that they can be engraved, and in fact have been since the earliest times. Inscribed rings were used for religious, political and sentimental purposes by the Greeks and Romans, and have been found engraved with such words as
ZHCAIC, XAIPE,
and
KAAH.
(You may want to think of something a little more meaningful to the two of you.)

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century betrothals utilized “posey” (verse) rings, which were inscribed in Old French, Old English, or Latin. Here's a sampling of some of the engravings found on them:

Till death divide

Amor vincit omnia
(Love conquers all)