Our Wedding Rings

Every now and then we get a question about our wedding rings and why we chose what we did. Well, today we're talking the who, what, and why, so pull up a chair and get comfy. 

When Thomas proposed to PJ on Christmas in 2014, he had originally wanted to do it with a gold ring. Everyone was (is?) doing silver these days, so he wanted to go a different route, maybe something more classic. At the time he was working at a bank and not making a lot of money, so the $500 gold ring he picked out just wasn't in the budget. Womp womp. Back to the drawing board it was!

He looked at the cheaper rings and compared the durability and price of them and finally found one that checked all of the boxes that he felt needed checking. Enter the tungsten carbide ring that we wear today. Well, one of us wears. More on that in a sec.

What we like about tungsten carbide is the sleek, smooth look and feeling of the metal. Mainly, though, we love the durability of it. No matter what we do to it, it simply won't scratch. We've had these rings for almost four years and haven't once gotten them polished, yet they still look just as good as the day we bought them. Thomas proposed to PJ with one of these, and then a couple of months later, PJ got a matching one to propose to Thomas with on his birthday. For a few years, we wore the same ring. Why did we wear the same one and not just get different ones? Honestly it's just something we've always done and never thought twice about. When we first started dating, we wore promise rings that were also the exact same (just cheap, $10 rings we found at a local store) so we've more or less been wearing matching rings for the majority of our relationship.

However, many of you have noticed that only Thomas wears the silvery-grey, tungsten carbide ring now, and PJ wears a black colored one. Actually, PJ's is a QALO. Have you heard of them? They're rubber so they're easy to get on and off. Most people wear their regular ring and then switch to a QALO while they're working out or doing other physical activity, but PJ wears his all the time, and the reason for the switch has to do with comfort. PJ cut four of his fingers off while he was building an incubator for his chickens when he was 13 years old (let that entire sentence sink in) and even though the surgeon was able to put them back on, his knuckles have since swelled due to the calcium buildup, which makes it difficult for a regular ring to stay on his finger. The issue is, the ring size has to be big enough to slide over his large knuckle, but then once it's on, it's loose and jangley. So, a QALO is perfect because it expands to fit over his knuckle but then it's nice and snug once it's on his ring finger. 

They come in all sorts of colors and some even have designs on them, but we picked up this $20 simple black one (above) and never looked back. He still has his original ring and it's kept safe in a drawer for now. It's funny how some people spend so much time worrying about rings and talking about rings etc etc and then others don't even wear them. It's just not as important to some, and that's okay. For us, though, rings have always been important. We're big into symbolism around here, whether it's taking his last name or wearing a ring, there's just something about a physical and deliberate act of love that is appealing to us. 

What about you? Do you wear a ring or are they not that important to you? And if you do wear one, what kind is yours? Would love to know!