The Forging of the Rings: Handmaking Our Wedding Bands

Perhaps one of the most symbolic experiences we did while engaged was handmaking each other’s wedding band. We had always been interested in doing this, but stumbled somewhat by accident upon the workshop called With These Rings, led by Stephanie Selle.

We found her website one random night when we lived in New Mexico, and tucked the idea safely away as something we “for sure” wanted to do. With These Rings was located in Port Townsend, WA, and we figured we could probably squeeze it in someday when we were up visiting family.

Little did we know at the time, but eventually we would find ourselves living on Whidbey Island, practically next-door neighbors with Port Townsend, and the town itself would become quite significant to us for several reasons. It’s a great place to visit and has become one of our favorite weekend trips (with an excellent bookstore). It is also where Jess accomplished her first solo flight when she was learning to fly, and eventually where she took her checkride to become a Private Pilot!

But, I digress – you get the picture. Port Townsend is special to us, and the first reason is that in a little workshop overlooking the Puget Sound, on the 4th of July, 2019, we forged each other’s rings! The following is a photo journal of the whole process, and we’d like to mention special thanks to Stephanie Selle for the experience, and our wonderfully awesome photographer, Melissa Jentzsch, who was there to not only capture the memory, but make it that much more special!