Category Archives: Gently Used Wedding Rings

5 Ways to Make Your Wedding Greener

Tuesday Treat

1. The Ring

Whether it be a family heirloom, a vintage piece, or another gemstone, the ring is one of the most important parts of your engagement. It is the delicate piece that is with you as a daily reminder of the love you have found. There are many options for green rings. We love this delicate vintage piece we found on Tradesy Weddings.

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2. The Dress

Equally as important as the ring, your wedding dress is what makes you feel the most beautiful on your special day. Finding the perfect dress to make you feel  beautiful can be a challenge. Instead of fighting the mass markets to find that overpriced, over worn piece, try a vintage or gently used option. There are so many beautiful dresses and not only is it a green option, it leaves a ton of green in your wallet!

Look at this entire section on Vera Wang on Tradesy Weddings!

3. The Venue

There are so many beautiful and extravagant venues across the globe, but equally as many beaches, state parks, local parks, and lakes. With the fees from these site rentals going right back into the community, it is a win-win for a beautiful and literally green wedding! We loved these venues!

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Sunset Cliffs, San Diego

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Yosemite National Park

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Central Park, New York

4. The Memories

Rather than have those cheesy throw away cameras at every table and then have to actually find somewhere, most likely expensive, to get the film processed… (Where can you even do that these days?) Why not opt for a social wedding!

With each persons email RSVP, you can add them to a Flickr account where they can share their own images from their camera phones, everyone has one, even Grandpa!   This is great because every guest can see what was going on across the room while they were drinking champagne! This is also a great way for your brides friends and grooms friends to interact and form an entire network of new friends all thanks to your beautiful wedding!

5. The Gifts

With so much excess involved with weddings, why not take a moment to give back to a local charity or when registering for your gifts, opt for a greener option. There are so many possibilities and some of our favorites include: a local produce subscription, eco friendly products from stores you are registered at, or this foundation we found that donates a portion of all gift purchases to your chosen cause,  I Do Foundation.

We hope these tips were helpful to you earth conscious brides and we wish you the best on your wonderful wedding day!

Natalie Portman’s Eco Engagement Ring!

Natalie Portman has always been one of our the world’s coolest green celebs. From her involvement with our fave charity, Global Green USA, to her awesome vegan shoe line, Natalie’s been an eco-hero for years.

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So when it came to choosing an engagement ring, Natalie’s fiancé Benjamin Millepied held true to her green values and selected a handmade design made with an antique old mine cut center stone and conflict-free pave diamonds surrounding it, all set in recycled platinum.

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Way to go Natalie and Benjamin! You’re not just eco-chic, you’re totally on-trend, with conflict-free diamond engagement rings more popular than ever in 2011.

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What do you think about Natalie’s ring? Love it? Hate it? Tell us in the comments below!

Wedding Ring Hunting with Recycled Robert

Million dollar eco-bling at bargain basement prices

How would you like to go shopping for some of the most beautiful bridal jewelry in the world, get it for a fraction of its real value, and help protect the Earth from harmful industrial diamond and gold mining along the way? Over the next few weeks I’m going to be blogging here every Thursday, showing you how and where to find incredible deals on valuable vintage and antique wedding jewelry.

I’m Robert, but around here they call me Recycled Robert. And it’s not just because I’m the only man on the Recycled Bride team. I’m a vintage and antique jewelry buff, and I get the best deals in the universe on some of the most exquisite jewelry around. For a while, I even considered opening up a consulting business to help grooms find great engagement jewels at a price that matched their budget. So how does a manly man like me get to be a lover of diamonds and gemstones? I grew up around a lot of people in the jewelry business, and I’m a bit of a history buff so I was always interested in antiques of all kinds. But I really discovered my passion for vintage bling and bargains when I was shopping for Tracy’s engagement ring and wedding band. Here then, by way of an introduction, is the story of Tracy’s incredible gently used wedding jewelry

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After months of shopping for Tracy’s engagement ring, I thought I’d seen every diamond and sapphire on Earth. Tracy’s requests were simple: She didn’t want a new diamond or new metals, and her ring didn’t have to be made of diamonds at all because she loves yellow sapphires too. I looked at gently used engagement rings from every antique and vintage jewelry dealer both locally and online, but hadn’t found what felt like “the one”. Then one day I stumbled into an old local jewelry store near my parents’ house. “The Ring”, as it is now known, was sitting in a display, waiting for a new owner. It turned out that it was from the 1940s and was being sold on consignment by an elderly lady who had worn it with love for over 50 years. I was able to get the shop owner to lower the price based on the knowledge I’d acquired about the value of diamonds and platinum, and by using some of the incredible bargaining techniques that I’ll be sharing over the next few weeks. Tracy won’t let me reveal the price I ended up paying for her gorgeous antique 3.6 carat show-stopper, but I can tell you that it was about 1/3 the appraisal value and not nearly as much as anyone who sees the ring would guess.

After finding the most beautiful engagement ring for Tracy, I was excited to search for the perfect wedding band to go with it. The same rules applied: We didn’t want any new metals or gemstones, so I was on the hunt for an antique or preowned ring. Now before Tracy created the greatest marketplace for wedding resale, I was a Craiglist devotee, and that’s where I found Tracy’s wedding band. It was a pricey diamond and platinum eternity band being sold for less than $1,000. The only problem: I found it on Craigslist New York, and we live in California. So I orchestrated a complicated Craigslist caper that sent Tracy’s parents (who live in NY) through three counties to claim the perfect wedding band at the right price.

Are you wondering how to safely buy jewelry like this online or from an antique dealer? Do you have questions or doubts about buying or wearing used wedding rings? That’s where I come in. Tune in here every Thursday for detailed, practical advice and tips about buying vintage and antique jewels. And, of course, you can email me your most burning wedding jewelry questions at Robert {at} RecycledBride.com.

See you next week,

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