Alex and Erin

Many years ago, my friend Iain decided to visit a very dear family friend of his and invited me to come along. It was a beautiful summer day and I thought “Nice day for a walk".  We headed down to Queen St. West.  We stopped in front of a store called  Lord of the Rings.  Being a huge nerd, I thought the name was awesome, but the coolness of the name didn’t fully prepare me for what I found inside.

The place was messy, but it was the kind of mess that one would expect to find in a fabled alchemist’s lab, or the workshop of a Renaissance eccentric. You could see tools and moulds everywhere. Rough sketches and wax figures giving hints of beautiful things waiting to be created. There were photos and negatives all over the place. Janis Joplin and The Rolling Stones were peeking out of contact sheets resting alongside old but well-loved cameras. There were intricate metal sculptures, otherworldly figures and daggers. Jewellery, shiny necklaces, golden bracelets, some behind glass, some just lying there, casually inviting you to admire them. And, of course, there were rings - strange, wonderful rings, beautifully crafted…magical. It was like walking into a movie set or a scene from a fantasy book come to life - a wizard’s shop. Working somewhere behind a counter was a man; when he noticed us he turned around to greet us with a bright friendly smile. Iain smiled back, said hello, then pointed to me and said, “This is my friend."  That is how I met Ivaan, Lord Of The Rings.

That was a long time ago, when I thought I would never get married. I used to think love did not need ceremonies to bind people together and weddings were a nuisance, scary and stressful. But then, as it often happens, you meet a pretty girl: blue eyes, cute smile, funny, intelligent and sharp as a blade and something kind of changes inside you. You spend eleven years together with a girl like that and every time she looks at you with those shiny blue eyes your heart flutters, you drool a little and you start thinking: perhaps marriage is not such a bad thing and ceremonies that celebrate love, well…they can be kind of fun.

I never gave much thought to what it must be like to get married, much less to things such as rings. Wedding rings they say are supposed to bind you together, as if simple metal bands can contain such power. Impossible, or is it?

Eya told us a story last year while we were attending an exhibition of Ivaan’s work. She said that many years ago, before I proposed to Erin (the pretty girl with the blue eyes), Ivaan decided that Erin and I should get married and that if I ever proposed, he would offer us our choice of wedding rings. Then she added, “His offer still stands.”  Suffice it to say, both Erin and I were touched by the story, and especially by Ivaan and Eya’s incredible generosity.

I never thought I would be lucky enough to wear a ring that meant so much. A ring crafted by the same brilliant artist I met all those years ago in that store on Queen Street West. A ring crafted by the Lord of The Rings.

There is genuine magic in Ivaan’s rings; a magic born of unbound imagination and skill, made bright by kindness and generosity, and rendered eternal by the love that went into their crafting. It is a powerful magic, the kind that can truly bind two people together.

We are so very fortunate to have known such a great artist and man… to be touched by such magic and to wear it on our fingers - knowing that as long as it’s there it will bind us together.

Thank you, Ivaan and Eya, for gifting us with such magic.  - Alex and Erin

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