Unique Wedding Bands with Beautiful Designs: How to Find Them

How do you find some unique wedding bands for you and your loved one?

There are so many jewelry stores, both online and the brick-and-mortar kind, that sell them. But what if you don’t like what they sell? Or what if you want to have an one-of-a kind wedding ring in your finger? Well, here are a few ideas to help you in your search.

1. Local independent jeweler

You local jeweler is the best place to start searching for a unique wedding band. A well established jeweler can tell you anything you need to know about wedding bands. And, of top of that, he or she can teach you a couple things about rings, gold and precious stones.

2. Big chain store

The advantage of visiting a big chain store is that you’ll have a large selection to choose from. You probably won’t find that unique wedding band with beautiful design you are looking for, but you might find something close to it. And, you might even get it for a good price.

3. Online stores

The Internet is full of jewelry store where you can find unique wedding rings with beautiful designs. But you must always be careful which site you buy from. Sadly, with an online store you won’t get that personal touch that you get from a local jeweler. And you also have the risk of dealing with fraudulent people.

But, on the other hand, some of the best stores on the planet are online stores. Which means that you can get superb jewelry, at great prices, and with a money back guarantee. And just to mention my favorite one, look at the jewelry section at Amazon.com (affiliate link). You’ll be amazed by the huge selection of wedding bands they offer.

4. Pawn shop of flea market

If you are a little adventurous, you can find unique wedding bands with beautiful designs at a local pawnshop. A pawnshop? Yes. A pawnshop. As you know, there are pawnshops, and there are pawnshops. An the trick to find which one is which is to use some old fashion common sense. If the store is well established you have a good chance of finding some beautiful wedding bands on their shelves.

5. Make your own

If you can’t find unique wedding bands at the above mentioned places, perhaps you should consider making them yourself. It won’t be easy, but it’s doable.

You have at least two options if you want to create your own unique wedding bands. Option one, you’ll have cast it, and polish to get the ideal design you’re looking for. The whole process is complicated and requires lots of skill and equipment.

Your second option is making the wedding bands using Precious Metal Clay (PMC). PMC is basically a type of jeweler’s clay. The clay is made of finely grounded precious metal (gold, silver, platinum) mixed with an organic material. You can work it like regular clay.

Once you mold the clay as you want it, you let it dry for sometime and then you “bake it” to burn the clay and melt the metal into a solid piece. After the clay is baked, the inorganic material evaporates and only the precious metal remains. You can polish it with specially made polishing cloths to get a shiny, absolutely unique and beautiful wedding band.

Of course, working with PMC requires some skill and a few specialty tools. But you can create those really unique wedding bands with beautiful designs you are looking for.

So…
If you want to have really unique and beautiful wedding bands in your wedding day, you’ll have to do your homework and do some research online and offline. Hopefully the tips mentioned above will help.

Looking For Unique Gifts Made From Wedding Invitation? Read These Easy Tips

What makes a wedding gift unique?

We all want to give unique wedding gifts, but we all struggle trying to find them. We go from store to store, and from website to website trying to find something unique to give as a wedding present, or any kind of present for that matter. But at the end, most people give up on the search and end up giving some common present like a house appliance or a set of wine glasses.

A popular wedding gift idea these days is giving gifts made from wedding invitations. There are several ways to do this and the whole thing is a great idea. After all, with the excitement of the wedding, newly weds forget to make something special out of their wedding invitations. They are more excited about the wedding and the honey moon. And once they are back from the trip, they place a wedding invitation in some photo album, and that’s the end of it.

Giving a wedding gifts made from the wedding invitation is a great way to keep the memory of the wedding day alive for years to come. And what could be better than mounting the invitation on a beautiful custom-made frame.

The characteristics of an unique gift made from a wedding invitation

Here is a short list of what makes a gift from a wedding invitation unique:

1. The gift must be custom made

An unique gift made from a wedding invitation must be made exclusively for the newly weds. Forget about those mass-produced invitation frames that you can buy at the mall or at the local mega store. Usually those invitation frames yell “CHEAP!” from the distance. And if you really care about the newly wed couple, you should not give them something like that.

The only way that you can give a non-custom frame to a newly wed couple, is that the frame must either be rare, limited edition, or of very high quality. Which means that you’ll have to work hard to find it, make it, or be ready to spend some serious money buying it.

Of course, how much money you spend on the any gift is not necessarily a good indication of its quality or rarity.  But we all know that a high-quality present is always expensive. So it makes sense to say that you’ll pay more for a good quality present.

2. The gift should be displayed proudly

A second characteristic of good unique gift made from a wedding invitation is that the recipient couple should be proud to display it on their home. The new family should want to place the present at a  prominent location on their home to keep the memory of their wedding alive for many years to come.

If, on the other hand, the couple stores the gift in a box in the attic, never to see the light of day again, there is not really point on giving on the first place. I bet they would be happy to take a cash gift instead.

3. The gift must be personalized

And the third characteristic of a good and unique wedding gift made from a wedding invitation is that it must be personalized. You cannot just buy some frame, expensive or not, and carelessly mount the wedding invitation on it. You must add something to the frame to tell the couple that you took good time and effort to put together the gift.

It could be some artistic design around the wedding invitation, a hand-made sketch or oil painting of the new couple. Or it could be some delicate calligraphy lettering. Whatever it is, it has to show that you made with care.

10k Gold Wedding Ring vs 14k Gold Wedding Ring: Does It Really Matter?

Can you think of a more popular metal for wedding rings?

Although wedding rings come in a large variety of metals, gold has not match in popularity. The popularity of gold wedding rings could be part tradition, part affordability, or it could just be that gold is a beautiful metal.

But, if you go to any jewelry and try to buy a gold wedding ring, you’ll quickly discover that gold comes in several colors, some of them you probably didn’t know existed: yellow gold, white gold, rose (red, pink) gold, green gold, grey gold, black gold (other than crude oil), purple gold and blue gold, just to name a few.

And then, you’ll also learn that gold also comes in several grades: 24K (or pure gold), 22K, 18K, 14K and 10K, just to name the most popular grades.

What are you supposed to do? How can you decide? Too many selections in color and grades make choosing a gold wedding ring too complicated.

Basics of Gold

You almost never will find a 24K wedding ring in a jewelry store. That’s because pure gold is just too soft, and expensive, to use in jewelry. So, in order to add some strength to it, and make it more affordable to the general public, jewelers mix several metals with pure gold to create popular gold grades (14k, 10k, etc.)

A little about Gold grades

Pure gold (24k gold) is mixed at standard proportions to create the different gold grades that we know. That’s why you’ll find that the most popular proportions are 22k, 18k, 14k and 10k. What that number indicates is the number of part of pure Gold in the mix. 22k Gold has 22 part of pure gold and 2 part of some other metal. 18k means that there are 18 part of pure gold and 6 part of other metal. And so on…

A 14k wedding ring has more gold than a 10K gold wedding ring. In other words, a 14k wedding ring contains 14 parts of pure gold mixed with 10 part of other metals. And a 10k wedding ring contains 10 parts of pure gold mixed with 14 part of other metals.

Is there a difference on how they look?

You would say that there is a big difference on how a 10k gold wedding ring vr a 14k gold wedding ring look. But in reality, and unless you are a gold expert, there is little difference on how they look. The only way you can notice any difference is if you compare two similar wedding rings side by side, one made of 14k gold, and the other one made of 10k gold.

How about the price?

Price-wise, you’ll notice the difference between a 10k gold wedding ring vs a 14k wedding ring. A 10k wedding ring will be less expensive than a similar ring made of 14k gold. And this is because of the difference in gold proportions. The more gold the ring has, the more expensive it will be.

How about durability?

A 10k gold wedding ring will be more durable and stronger than a 14k wedding ring. This is because the more gold a wedding ring has, the softer the metal is. This difference may not be significant when you are planning your wedding and you want to buy the best for your future spouse. But down the road, it will matter a whole lot.

Just think about it. In about 5 years from your wedding day, you and your spouse will be pushing, pulling, scratching, sanding, scrapping, hammering, and using any kind of tools to fix something (or someone) around the house. A 10k wedding ring will take all that action better than a 14k wedding ring.

10k gold wedding ring vs 14k wedding ring: what’s the final word?

For the long term, a 10k gold wedding ring will be better than a 14k wedding ring.
The 10k wedding ring looks almost identical, will be more durable and will be more affordable than a 14k wedding ring.

Princess Diana Wedding DVD: What You Need to Know About it

Can you think of a more influential wedding than a Royal Wedding?

Royal weddings leave their mark not only in history, but also on the minds, and even the hearts, of those who watch it. After all, you don’t witness a Royal Wedding every day. They are truly memorable moments.

One of those weddings still fresh in people’s mind is the Princess Diana wedding. It was called a real “fairy tale” wedding and it was witnessed live by more than 750 million people worldwide.

If you want some inspiration for your wedding, this is a superb place to start. The dress, the crowd, the music… absolutely amazing.

The bad news, though, is that getting a DVD copy of the wedding is not that easy. There are a couple places online that sell copies of the TV transmission. But there is not an “official” DVD version of the wedding ceremony.

What you can find, instead, are VHS editions of the wedding. Which means that if you don’t have VHS player, you’ll have to either borrow one, or buy one (yes, a few stores still sell them).

How can you have your own Princess Diana Wedding DVD?

If you really want to have your own Princes Diana wedding DVD, you can get the VHS tape, and then transfer it to DVD using one of the tools available on the market.

How to Decorate with Lights and Tulle at a Wedding Reception

Want an easy and effective way to decorate a hall for your wedding reception?

Tulle and light decorations can transform any hall into a dreamy, almost magic place. And if you are on a budget, you can still get stunning results by using thoughtfully placed tulle decorations. You can buy tulle at wholesale prices and use any leftovers to create wedding favors, or to use on your centerpieces.

Tulle is a strong and light fabric that can turn your wedding reception hall into an almost magical place. Add some light strings and the effect is amazing. Also, you don’t have to stick to white tulle. Tulle comes in many colors, and choosing one that matches or compliments your wedding theme it’s not problem at all.

Where and how to decorate with lights and tulle at a wedding reception?

1. Back of chairs

You can create a large bow or flower and attach it to the back of the chairs. And to add a little more interest to the ornament, you can use tulle with a different color than the color of the chair cover. Just remember to match the color with the general wedding color themes, or color palettes.

Adding lights to the back of the chairs can be a little tricky because you don’t want wires hanging from the chair. In this case, a good alternative is to use a battery powered LED light arrangement.

2. Head table

Lights and tulle decorations at the head table is the best way to add a magical touch to the wedding reception. The headtable is the one place where every person in the room will focus, so any arrangement must be carefully done. Yet again, if you are on a budget, the head table should be your main priority.

3. Top of walls

You can also decorate the top of the wall with light and tulle at the wedding reception, but only if you have boring walls. If you have a highly decorated wall, with well done trim work, you should skip the tulle and the lights. That’s because you don’t want to cover the architectural features of the room. But if you have a hall with plain walls, tulle and lights is an effective way to add some beauty to the room.

4. Around columns

If the wedding reception hall has built-in columns, or if you are using portable columns for the event, consider using tulle and light to cover them. This will soften the harshness of most structural columns and will add more definition to the space planning of the hall.

5. Around the wedding cake

A little tulle around the wedding cake could add an extra touch of interest to the wedding cake. But do it very conservatively because you don’t want to distract from the beautiful cake.

6. Ceilings

This is where lights and tulle are more effective in a wedding reception. The possibilities are almost endless and the results are always amazing.

There are several ways to decorate your ceiling with light and tulle:

a) Radial patterns: Use long strips of tulle meeting at central location in the ceiling from the walls. The center point must have a large ornament to be effective, Ideally, a sophisticated light fixture will do the trick.

The radial pattern works better for round rooms or not too large square rooms. But if you have a long room, consider having three central points at equal distances from each other where the tulle strips meet. Never two or four.

b) Criss cross or grid patter: Use a criss cross or net pattern if the wedding reception hall is too wide for radial patterns

c) Parallel pattern: Parallel strips of tulle and light are a good option when you have a long reception hall. The strips can attach either only at the walls, or at the walls and to one or several places on the ceiling. If you attach the tulle to the ceiling, always coordinate the sags with your seating arrangement.

d) Random pattern: Use random patterns of tulle and lights when you don’t want to define any spaces in the hallway. Any decorations on the ceiling will always define spaces in the wedding reception hall.

Always keep the lights behind the tulle

Just keep in mind a very important rule: always keep the light behind the tulle. If you do this, the tulle will soften the intensity of the light and be more effective.

In Short…

If you wondering how to decorate with lights and tulle at a wedding reception, your imagination is the limit. There are endless possibilities on colors, patterns, and locations. And the results will always be stunning.