This is not the story of the endless succession of jewellers we visited until we thought all rings looked the same. Nor is it the story of the myriad of things we had to learn about diamonds. It’s not even the story of the hot shot designer’s salesperson who insisted on telling me what I wanted even though it was the complete opposite of what I had just said. It’s actually the story about rings that has a happy ending and Lily Kamper made it happen.
We decided quite early that we wanted to find a designer to create a unique ring. Not just because we didn’t seem to like anything that we could find but mainly because it really appealed to us to create something that could tell our story. And for that, we knew we needed someone to help us out since – as I’ve mentioned already – we believe in artists.
Pelennor and I believe in stories. He loves sprawling sagas in strange worlds and I am a real believer in narrativium. As we were reading about rings, looking at designs and discussing the style we would prefer we slowly started building not an actual design but a little story. Words do not a ring maketh however, so on to a bit of a search we went to find someone to tell our little story in metal and stones.
Lily got the idea immediately. She sat down with us, patiently listening, getting involved and it felt like her mind was just fizzing with ideas that made a lot of sense to us. It was also the first time that I saw Pelennor so involved. Where with either designers he was quiet and let me go with what I wanted, with Lily he really opened up, came up with new ideas and ended up designing our wedding bands.
From the first idea, to the shaping of the design, to finding the right stones and to secretly working with Pelennor so that he could surprise me with a cute proposal when the rings were ready, Lily was our talented friend. She advised, she co-created, she helped but we never felt that she was trying to tell her story. Instead, she made ours into an object and for that we are grateful.
We are not perfect people. We never were. We should not try to be. We have a past as individuals and we decided to bring our imperfect selves together. The blue eyed man with the green eyed woman – and Lily found exactly the right shades of those colours to match with our eyes. We want our marriage to be a union of imperfect people, we want to remember the bad and the good, taking it all to create a new common life. That’s why the two stones point to this one perfect but imperfect salt & pepper diamond – the brilliant stone with the good stuff and the bad.
Check out Lily Kamper’s work on her website and follow her on instagram too.
Disclosure: This is not a paid or promotional post.