Emma J, a nurse from the North-East, was particularly close to her grandmother who has sadly passed. She was lucky enough to have inherited her grandmother’s wedding ring as a forever keepsake to remember the woman who had been so special to her. After her partner, Gary, had proposed she absolutely knew that she wanted a bespoke wedding ring which would use her grandmother’s ring in some way.
 
Knowing that she wanted to keep her grandmother with her always, Emma had originally discussed trying to make her own bespoke wedding ring using the material of her grandmother’s ring. Obviously, this would mean losing the ring itself, but it would allow her to keep the memory of her grandmother with her always. Emma and her friend headed to the internet to investigate what and how it could be done.
 
Fortunately for Emma, her friend shared with her the Rings By Design social media. After taking a look at our previous work and liking what she had seen she got in touch to arrange a chat about her ideas of recycling her grandmother’s ring to create her own bespoke wedding ring. We arranged an appointment and she came to see us.
 
Absolutely EVERY piece we create has massive importance. In this case we just knew that this was an especially important piece of bespoke jewellery. Not only was this going to be Emma and Gary’s symbol of unending love and dedication, but this was going to be a way for Emma to carry her grandmother’s memory for the rest of her life. A tribute not only to her grandmother but to her grandmother’s own successful marriage.
 
Emma’s idea of creating a bespoke ring by recycling the original material was a fine idea and we most certainly could achieve that very easily. However, we felt that there was something more we could offer. Recycling the material would effectively mean destroying the original piece which seemed a terrible shame.
 
As with all of our bespoke jewellery we explored different design options and we came up with an incredible solution that would mean that not only would Emma be able to have the bespoke wedding ring of her dreams, but she would be able to retain her grandmother’s ring! Emma loved the plans and selected the design she loved the most.
 
We took Emma’s grandmother’s ring and cut a slice off it. This meant that she would retain most of the ring intact. We when rolled this piece of the ring into a sheet of material. We cast a ring of white gold as per Emma’s choice, but with a channel running around it. We then laid Emma’s Grandmother’s yellow gold into the channel, soldering it in place. This created a beautiful bespoke wedding band of Emma’s modern looking white gold selection and her grandmother’s classic yellow gold.
 
The next dilemma was that Emma wanted diamonds. Unfortunately, because she is a nurse, she thought that diamonds wouldn’t be an option because of restrictions on jewellery in her workplace. Claw settings, Tiffany’s, Illusions – she thought all settings were out of the equation. Leave it to us Emma! We’ve got you.
 
As part of the design of her bespoke wedding ring, we introduced Emma to the channel setting. With this style of setting the tops of the gems are flush with the surface of the band. This meant that the gems could be seated in such a way that no gem projected out beyond the surface on the band. So, into Emma’s band we channel set a row of beautiful diamonds.
 
Emma had obviously looked for the ideal wedding rings in a variety of places, it’s a natural part of the shopping process. She had planned her budget and having seen pre-made rings within her budget, she anticipated having to pay a king’s ransom in order to be able to have her own bespoke rings. Emma was very pleasantly surprised to find that having her own unique wedding rings created fell well within her budget!

We're delighted to announce a fantastic competition to win just that running from now to the end of the year.

Every customer who has a Facebook account & makes a purchase from Rings By Design or our shop Polished Jewellery (including customers who have something repaired, cleaned or rhodium plated) are eligible too enter.

All you have to do is post a picture of your purchase or repair on your own Facebook page and tag in Rings By Design. What could be easier?

The competition closes at midnight on 31st December 2017 and the winner will be announced early in the new year,  So what would you buy if we gave you £500 to spend? While you're pondering that why not get posting and tagging?  It could be you! 

Well I'm not going to pretend it wasn't a nervous 30 minutes or so but I'm relieved to announce that the transition from our old website to our new one is now complete and that it went smoothly without incident. (No mean feat considering how clueless I am when it comes to web hosting, name servers, DNS tags etc).

I hope you all think the new site is a big improvement and you don't mind me taking this opportunity to say Thank You to a few people:
- To Ameila Thomson who did most of the work despite claiming she knew nothing about building websites (A bit of a fib I think judging by the result).
- To Roger from Avant Garde Photography who did many of the products shots for us.
- And last but certainly not least to our fantastic customers who allowed us to photograph their rings and share their stories and feedback on the site.

To celebrate the launch of the new site and the 15 year anniversary of the Rings By Design brand we're running a couple of promotions for purchases made before the end of October. Buy a ladys and a gents wedding rings and get 20% off the cost of the gents ring and for same sex couples buy any two rings and get 20% off the least expensive ring. Give us a call on 0191 5843338 if you'd like to arrange a free, no-obligation consultation.

​Those who know me will tell you it's not often that I'm lost for words but when our name was announced as the Winner of the North Of England Wedding Awards last week you could have knocked me over with a feather. 

I'm not sure why I was so surprised really; Graham is a very skilled jeweller and we do try extremely hard to make our customers happy but the fact that so many people took time out of their busy days to vote for us and said such lovely things about us really blew me away.

To all our customers - Old and new - Whether you found the time to vote or not - Thank you. It really means a lot.

Kind regards,
​Ian & Graham - Rings By Design