An excerpt from the book recently ran on Elle Canada's website. Granted, it was pretty sanitized (I curse a lot in the book — I guess Elle readers aren't as foul-mouthed as I am), but you can check it out over here: The ring with the bling: Who needs an engagement ring?

We don't want wedding bands…ever. So we decided on tattoos, but this leaves us "finger-naked" for the ceremony. I thought I hit a home run with the idea of using ribbon and "tying the knot" to symbolize the damn thing, but he wasn't too thrilled about that. Got any ideas? —Roan

To help me answer this question, I decided to pull on the expertise of two wedding officiants — my parents! They're both Internet-ordained ministers, and between the two of them they've married dozens of people, often helping couple craft their ceremonies from scratch. They have different styles of officiating, though, so may I present to you the first edition of DUELING OFFICIANTS!

Continue reading "Ring-free wedding ceremony" →

While my sweetie and I DO want to exchange rings, we DON'T want to spend a lot of money on them, and we have no interest in traditional, mainstream wedding rings. We want something simple, different, and not made out of gold. We live in a town that doesn't have anything like that, so online is our best bet. But once we start looking around for wedding bands, all we find are expensive, boring, overly-decadent gold and diamond style rings… There's just too much online to know where to start! -Sara

I applaud your decision to go the non-diamond, inexpensive route for your wedding rings. Diamonds are grossly overpriced, and of course there's that whole blood diamond thing, so you're so much better off going for either a different stone or no stone at all.

First things first: are you SURE there aren't any custom jewelry makers in your neck of the woods? There's nothing more awesome than designing your own bands, and if you find a good jewelry maker they can usually work within your budget. Plus, it's cool to support a local artisan.

Here's a first tip: Don't look for "wedding rings" — they always cost more!

That said, if there really aren't any around, you're right: there are TONS of online options. Here's a first tip: Don't look for "wedding rings" — they always cost more! There's this strange phenomenon of somehow if it has to do with a wedding it costs twice as much. Seriously. This isn't just for rings, it's for dresses, flowers, suits, chair rentals, everything. It's a total racket. So when shopping online for rings, don't search for "wedding bands." Just look for rings that you like.

That said, here are a few links to get you started:

Continue reading "Non-sucky wedding rings" →