I Promise To Travel With You

Have you seen my engagement and wedding rings? They're gorgeous. I love them. After 5 years of dating and countless conversations about getting engaged, we knew we were ready to take the next step back in 2009, and I started showing Tom the ring styles that I liked. While we were browsing, there was one ring from Yael Designs that stood out among the rest. It was gorgeous. I loved it. I dreamed about it. I secretly hoped he would pick that one.

And he did! On September 12, 2009, he proposed in our backyard and I said yes! He presented me with this gorgeous ring and he also had the matching wedding band waiting.

When it was time to get his wedding ring, he had very basic rules - it must be white gold (or the like), it must be very lightweight, and it must be very, very simple. No diamonds, no filigree, etc... We found what he wanted and we've worn our rings every day since.

Jewelry by Yael Designs, Photo by Choco Studio

I love my wedding band because I can wear it without my engagement ring and still have a bit of bling. It's great for vacations or times when I want to wear a big cocktail ring on the other hand (which would be a bit much with my engagement ring on my left hand and another huge bauble on the right). But - even though the wedding band is perfect for our normal vacations, I didn't think it was acceptable for this trip. It's still loaded with diamonds so, not only did I worry about losing it or getting mugged because of the diamonds on my left hand, I also didn't feel comfortable with such a show of American privilege when we'll be visiting a lot of places where people can barely feed their families. So we decided that I would get a new, cheap ring for travel. And, because I was getting a new ring, I wanted Tom to get one also - a new set of rings that would be symbolic of this adventure.

We both had a lot of thoughts on the topic and, obviously the first place I looked was Etsy. We needed the rings to be simple, coordinating, cheap, and symbolic. We considered the options...

Walnut Weddings Bands - $145 for the pair
by Seven Valley Hill

Silver Wedding Ring Set - $68 for the pair
by Falling Leaf Jewelry

Sterling Silver Love Knot Ring - $21.95
by Cecile L. Stewart Jewelry

Lots of great options out there! But nothing was really fitting the bill. Recently, my good friend Bernadette (whose house I'm at right now, babysitting her and her husband's amazing 22 month-old daughter, Quinlan, who's napping) told me that she loves how literally Tom and I take our wedding vows, which we wrote ourselves. We have our wedding vows framed on our bedroom wall. We have snippets of vows in artwork around the house. And we are constantly referring back to them as we navigate through our marriage. So it made sense to fall back on one of our vows for these rings - "I promise to travel with you."

So when I found Kathryn Riechert's beautiful stamped posey rings, I knew that I'd found the winner. Do you know about posey rings? Posey rings are simple bands engraved or stamped with sentiments of love and were popular in England and France as early as the 15th century as lovers' gifts. Pretty cool, huh? I ordered this thin, small print Posey Ring for $36 and Tom wanted this wider, tiny text Posey Ring for $50.

And they came and we LOVE them. They are going to be perfect for our trip - simple, but also very personal. I know I'm really going to miss my beautiful engagement and wedding rings while we're travelling (I'm constantly gazing down at them, thinking about how much I love them), but I love that we can continue to wear these rings for future adventures.

Each ring says "I promise to travel with you," on the outside and "T + S Swain" on the inside

I can think of a million different reasons to give/buy/wear this kind of ring - graduation, new baby, friendship, mother/daughter, anniversary. What would your posey ring say?