Ethical Wedding Bands

What are your favourite wedding traditions? Everyone has them, whether it’s wearing something old, new, borrowed and blue, or the champagne toasts to the newlyweds.

Here at Eco Wood Rings, our favourite wedding traditions are the meaningful ones, wherever in the world they originate. In the Philippines, after the wedding ceremony, the happy couple release two white doves, a symbol of their joyous life to come. Welsh grooms traditionally carved lovespoons for their brides, decorated with the keys to their hearts. In Mexico, the couple don a “lazo” over their shoulders, shaped like an eight for infinity. What could be more special than these traditions which show a couple’s love?

For eco conscious couples, making sure your wedding is sustainable is almost as important as the traditions of the day itself. While it’s not possible for any wedding to be completely sustainable, asking your florist for locally sourced flowers and kitting your venue out with reusable decorations can be wonderful places to start. Lots of couples now choose to give charity donations in place of traditional wedding favours, cutting down on waste and doing good for others at the same time. And let’s face it, a wedding cake made from Fairtrade, organic ingredients filled with seasonal fruit just tastes better. (Everyone takes a third slice, right? Asking for a friend.)

Choosing a custom designed eco wood ring to exchange with your spouse on your wedding day is another way to show your commitment to conscious consumption and breathe new life into this oldest of wedding traditions.

Pause for a moment and picture the scene: you’re waiting in your cave after a long, hard day of gathering nuts and berries, looking after the children, and keeping watch for sabre-toothed tigers. In walks your mate who, grunting, ties a dainty twig around your finger, symbolising his devotion to you and your life together. You gaze down at your ring and you think, “Well, at least it’s sustainably sourced!”

That’s right, it turns out that wedding bands have been around since the cavemen days and, throughout history, happy couples have given and received rings as a sign of their love, fidelity and commitment to their marriages.

The Ancient Egyptians gave wedding bands made of leather and bone and it wasn’t until the Roman times that metal rings really took off. Grooms wearing rings was less common in the United States until the dangerous days of World War Two, when both spouses began to wear wedding bands in order to keep their faraway loved ones closer to their hearts.

Worn on the third finger of the left hand, where there is a vein that runs straight to the heart, and shaped like a circle to represent eternity, the exchanging of the rings is certainly one of the most romantic parts of any wedding day. But how can you choose a wedding band which is both meaningful to you as a couple and ethical too?

As much as singling out the ideal song for your first dance together as newlyweds, choosing your wedding rings is a deeply personal decision. It is another way to inject your personalities into the proceedings and looking down at your beautiful ring is the best memento of your special day.

An eco wood ring gives you the chance to quite literally wear your happy memories on your finger. Lovingly made with wood or metal of your choosing, and created according to your specifications, designing your own ethical wedding rings is a way to customise wedding traditions in order to suit the two of you.

Many of our clients have chosen rings with special meanings. We love seeing how creative our customers are, whether it’s using sand from the beach where the proposal took place or using the wood from their favourite skateboard. Of course, taking your front door off its hinges to carve out a chunk for a ring might not be practical in the winter months, so we have our own wood options too.

The best part is that our beautiful ethical wedding bands tick so many important boxes. Eco friendly? Tick. Affordable? Tick. Traditional? Tick. Meaningful? Tick.

We want to celebrate those couples who commit to making sure that their weddings are planet-friendly and we know that it might not  be easy! We also believe that wedding traditions are just a starting point and that nothing is more important than the happy couple enjoying themselves and the best day of their lives. Traditions should never hold you back from doing what you want to do on your special day. After all, you might not want to spend a portion of your day cleaning up broken porcelain, like newlyweds in Germany. We’re here to tell you that whatever you decide and however you choose to celebrate, it’ll be wonderful.

It is okay to reinvent the wheel when it comes to weddings. Worried you’ll spill something down that pristine white dress? Wear your favourite colour instead. Filled with anxiety about the public speaking portion? Skip it, or pre-record your speech, then just press play. Tight budget? Get your guests to bring a bottle. They won’t mind!

Your wedding band will be one-of-a-kind and we are quite sure that your wedding will be too! After all, your love for one another is unique, so why not create your own special traditions together?

Planning a spring wedding or summer wedding? Our rings typcially take 6-8 weeks to make, so please do contact us soon to start the conversation about your one-of-a-kind designs.

Stay social with us by liking us on Facebook, find some inspiration following us on Instagram or start planning for your special day and follow us on Pinterest.