A wedding ring is special all on its own, either chosen especially for you by the one you love or chosen by you to suit your own taste. The very fact that the ring has been created for a special occasion, not just any old ring, means a lot. But what if you could make it even more special, even more unique, by adding a discreet engraved message around the inside, something only you and the person you love know about? What a lovely secret!
The custom of inscribing romantic words inside wedding rings started in the royal courts of medieval Europe. Today, engraving a message inside a ring’s shank, and sometimes even around the edge of the stone, is an increasingly popular way to make wedding rings personal and unique.
At Orla James we offer a suite of special services not offered by many other jewellers, and one of those services is free wedding ring engraving. Here’s what you need to know.
FREE wedding ring engraving – Make your ring even more special
It doesn’t cost you a penny extra to have your wedding ring engraved. And you don’t have to make the decision straight away, either. Feel free to take your time. You can have it engraved after three months, six months, even a year. It makes sense because it means you can return the ring to us, un-engraved, if it isn’t 100% what you want. Whereas having a ring engraved in a high street store at the time of purchase means it is non-refundable – you’ve bought it, and that’s that.
It also matters because people’s fingers change over time. Maybe the ring you bought from us turns out to be a bit too loose after a few weeks, or too small. If you’d had it engraved at the start, re-sizing the ring could leave your engraved message in a mess!
Choosing the right engraved message
If you’re buying a wedding ring for your finance or fiancee, you might want to create a surprise message to engrave inside. You may want to buy your rings together, as a couple, one for him and one for her, and decide jointly what you’d like engraved inside. Or you might each decide separately what to have engraved on your other half’s ring.
The only limitation is the amount of space there is for engraving. If you think your message might be a bit long for the available space, give the team at Orla James a call and we’ll be able to advise you.
Some people take the traditional route, others take their engraved message to an entirely different level. Some are funny, some touching, some eccentric, some very serious. You can engrave your wedding bands with something romantic, something personal and meaningful. It might be a religious message. Or something that means a lot to the pair of you but remains mysterious to everyone else. Here’s some inspiration for you.
Wedding ring engraving inspiration – 19 hot tips
- Keeping things simple, your names or initials…even your secret nicknames for each other
- Plus the names of your kids if you have children, since plenty of people get married after they’ve had children together
- The date you got married, the date you first met or the date you were engaged
- The place you met, that special place you keep revisiting together, that means the world to you
- Something simple yet powerful like I love you, Truly, madly & deeply, you are my life, forever mine, my heart is yours or together forever
- The infinity symbol, or simply the word ‘eternity’, ‘always’ or ‘forever’
- The ultimate in romance, for example my soul mate or Mon cœur est a vous, which is French for my heart is yours
- Je t’aime – French for I love you
- Never doubt I love – a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
- Deus Nos Iunxit, which is Latin for God joined us, or alternaticely Joined under God
- Ani L’Dodi v’Dodi Li – Hebrew for I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine
- Amor Vincit Omnia – Latin for love conquers all, or Semper Amemus, which means love always
- Da mi basia mille – which means give me a thousand kisses
- In perpetuum et unum diem, Latin for forever and a day
- Your initials plus ‘together forever’
- 百年好合 which says happily ever after in Chinese, or 花好月圆 which says blissful harmony in Chinese
- To have and to hold
- Mon amour – French for my love, or amore mio, Italian for my love
- Something funny, for example mine all mine or worth the wait
We can engrave messages up to around 25 characters and remember you can shorten a long inscription by using an ‘&’ instead of the word ‘and’. And make very sure that the spelling of your inscription is perfect before you send it to us. But don’t worry if there is something in the engraving that needs to be corrected – we can re-do it!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. We love talking to happy couples, and we’re always delighted to give good advice about any an every aspect of wedding jewellery.