The Vine: March 30, 2011
My partner and I are planning to get married next year. But the fact is, we both hate wearing jewelry, and neither of us wants to wear a ring for the rest of our lives. We’re not worried about what other people will say about our choice — we’re grownups, we can deal with that — but we’re wondering what we should do symbolically during the ceremony.
Rings are so central to the popular idea of marriage that it’s hard to imagine one without them. When I think about the practices of other cultures, it seems that just about all of them have adopted the exchange of rings.
So we are asking for ideas. Have any of your readers seen a non-ring wedding? How did it go? We also welcome original ideas. (This will be a completely secular wedding, by the way.)
Loves the man, hates the jewelry
PS I did go to a Wiccan hand-fasting once, which was a lovely ceremony with wonderful people, but the rope-binding did rather bring bondage to mind.
Dear Loves,
HIGH FIVES! YEAHHHHHH!
N…o?
Hee. Okay, first of all, congratulations! Second of all, if you have enough booze and good food at the reception, most people won’t even remember what you do about rings, so if what you decided to do is nothing, and you skip them entirely, trust your own judgment and don’t worry too much about it.
With that said, it sounds to me like, although you don’t care to wear rings in your everyday lives, you don’t have any specific objection to doing something with the ritual during the ceremony — and it is a nice ritual, significant and official, and people like to ooh and cry and take pictures during it. So, if you just don’t want the rings afterwards, maybe try to find a ring in the style of the wish bracelets with the tiny charms on them; after a few days or a week, the twine of the bracelet erodes and falls off, and that’s when your wish goes out into the world. Or something?
You can see an example here; a lot of the ones you might find by Googling can get preeeeetty Smurfy with the copy and the bitty little hearts and whatnot, but you can skip the charm part, or customize it whichever way so that you have little items to put on each other’s fingers but you don’t have to keep it forever. You could make your own with embroidery floss. (Hell, I’ll send it to you.)
Or go with the high-five idea. Make the whole congregation do it. Why not? If you’re psyched about it, the guests will get psyched about it.
Tags: boys (and girls) etiquette
If you like the ring ceremony, keep it. You’ll be in a long and fine Jewish tradition of not wearing the ring used in the ceremony. (This is because the ceremony requires a plain gold band, which is not to everyone’s taste. After the ceremony the plain ring goes with other mementos.)
Im late to this (catching up on my reading!) but I just attended a lovely gay wedding where the couple mixed a Manhattan during the ceremony. One had the bourbon and vermouth, one had the ice and bitters, and they took turns shaking the shaker. It was funny and very them and a nice twist on sharing a cup of wine or lighting candles or other “unity” ceremonies. The officiant even had a sip…not sure if that makes it a threesome! At the reception, our table assignments were waiting for us in lovely rocks glasses which then became our party favors.
They also did rings, but my point is that you can do something else symbolic that has more to do with your personality, whether funny or schmoopie. I think we’ll all remember the Manhattan more than we remember the rings (which they actually got mixed up and couldn’t get on…the drinking went much more smoothly!).
Great ideas here…I just wanted to chime in (since it sounds like you like the ring symbolism but are just not into jewelry) that I am not a jewelry person either, so I just got the thinnest completely plain band I could find and it doesn’t bother me at all. It is seriously like a part of my body–I don’t even have to bother to take it off to throw pottery or garden or anything else. It might as well be a tattoo, except it’s silver and not black. My engagement ring, on the other hand is a FREAKING ROCK (we’re not rich–it’s an heirloom) and I don’t feel comfortable wearing it 99% of the time, so I just “bring out the bling” for special occasions.