One ring to bind them... AKA Obligatory LOTR reference

We have finally decided on a design for our rings. We are thinking white gold with frosting (not the cake kind) in the middle. It looks a little something like this.

Anyways, that aside, Barry our ringmaker is one cool guy. There were literally a billion cool things about the whole experience.

So here's the short version.

1. He's doing our rings for the cost of the gold.
2. He did the 1985 Stanley Cup rings for the Edmonton Oilers
3. He has two or three autographed posters of Gretzky, wearing the ring Barry designed.
4. He started carving the wax models of our rings while we were talking to him.
5. He sees Daorcey's dad as there reason he's successful today.

Long version

Barry works for Jostens but does rings on the side. There's a really cool story that goes along with this that I'll write about later. We show up at his office five minutes late due to our inability to agree on breakfast. After a delicious and nutritious McDonald's meal we show up but ended up waiting for him.

Barry likes to trap so he came roaring in from the bush. His office is cluttered but then again I don't know what a ringmaker's office should look like. On the walls are pictures of Barry posing with the Stanely Cup and the Grey Cup and other athletes. There are lots of photos of Gretzky and Barry posing with Gretzky. Turns out, ol' Barry designed the 1985 Stanley Cup ring among other championship ring designs.

Talking to Barry is pretty interesting. After we've settled on a design, we asks how he would make our rings. There's a small workbench in the corner of the office and he pulls out this blue tube of wax. He cuts off 3mm to simulate the width of my wedding band. And then he starts smoothing down the edges with a file. We're just talking and talking and he's carving our rings, which is rare in the industry. Most guys buy the wax rings precut but he likes to carve it himself. Daorcey was really blown away by the fact Barry started carving our rings right there.

There's like a billion cool things to about this whole experience. It's nice to know the man who's designing your wedding bands. It beats the hell out of anonymous salesperson at Birks. He looked at my ring and said, "I'll make it notched so it'll fit just perfect." That really impressed me. He seemed genuinely excited to make our wedding bands as perfect as possible.

He's pretty easygoing too. When we went to Spence, any time a salesperson wanted to show us a diamond, the salesperson had to go to a back safety room to get the diamond. You're always conscious that diamonds are a precious commodity. With Barry, there's precious gems scattered all over his desk. To get this precious stock, Barry removes the "safety tree" that hides the safe, the unlocked safe I might add. There he pulls out all different gems like rubies, garnets and black diamonds. And he just tosses them at us for us to take a look. He even loses a small diamond on his desk and he's totally unconcerned.

We're just about ready to go and pick up Daorcey's friend for the gift opening, when I ask Barry how much this will cost. Barry looks up from the wax models and says pretty casually, "Oh just the cost of the gold." Daorcey and I just turn to each other amazed at this revelation. An 18K white gold ring, say at Birks, is $645. Turns out Colin, Daorcey's dad, was the reason behind Barry's success and Barry is still highly appreciative for this.

Back in the day, Colin was looking for a guy to do the graduation rings for Memorial Composite High School. He picked Barry. From there Barry started doing rings for Spruce Grove's high school and the Edmonton area. This success enabled Barry to start doing championship rings, say Stanley Cup rings. So succeessful was Barry that Jostens became really concerned. So they offered him a $1 million buyout and offered him a job while still doing a ring here and there. Basically, he's doing our rings as a favour to Colin. I mean how do you repay a favour that allows Barry to make championship rings (even for the Superbowl) and go trapping for weeks on end?

All that's left do for our rings is to drop off my engagement rings so Barry can fit the wedding band just right so I imagine we'll be up in Edmonton fairly soon.