Sitting Down With Dear Rae
Tips on Choosing Your Wedding Band or Engagement Ring
Being so in love with beautiful details, our design interests naturally trickle down to wedding accessories as well. We often get questions from our brides on how to go about choosing their rings, so we sat down with Founder and Designer of Cape Town based jewellery design studio, Dear Rae, Karin Rae, and asked her for some tips on how to choose your dream wedding band or engagement ring. Remember that choosing together can also be an extra special and fun occasion!
Much like our Bo & Luca gown’s are hand-beaded by our dedicated team of artisans, Dear Rae’s founder and designer, Karin Rae, is passionate about empowering and employing local South African’s to create their unique designs.
We also now have a collection of curated accessories in our Cape Town studio for brides to experience.
Deciding On The Design
A good place to start when designing or choosing your wedding band would be to look online, Karin suggests creating a board on Pinterest, the perfect place for brides to pin their favourite pieces. While looking online is great, your best bet is always going to be engaging with the pieces in the flesh. A lot of choosing your ring/wedding gown has to do with you engaging with the product and getting an actual feel of it.
Book an appointment and come into studio to try on your wedding gown along with some of our hand picked Dear Rae pieces. Try on different options, get to know the different fits and designs, and explore your options.
Budget is Beautiful
Like Dear Rae, we understand that the world of luxury can be overwhelming at times and believe that making these garment and accessory choices don’t have to be scary. Bo & Luca also strive to offer affordable options; our sister label, Temple by Bo & Luca, allows our Bohemian wedding gowns to be more accessible to everyone and are available to shop online. Featuring luxurious elements of chiffons and bold lace accents, but is still accessible to our valued brides with a reduced budget.
The spending mentality has definitely shifted when it comes to purchasing your wedding gown and band as there’s more focus on value for money and quality versus spending out of your budget for the sake of it.
Karin explains, “There is definitely an old school thought that says you need to spend 2 – 3 months of your salary on the ring and get a big white diamond. We definitely don’t believe in that at Dear Rae. You could get a smaller white diamond, which is just as beautiful, or you could explore lots of other gemstones, like tourmaline, sapphires…”
Trends Taking Off in Bridal Jewellery
When asking the Dear Rae team about trends in the industry, their answers resonated, “Trends, obviously, come and go and we definitely are inspired by them, but we do try to take our own approach and put our own stand on it,” said Karin who also added, “For a long time, we’ve been loving and pushing the trend of colour diamonds. I just love the array of all the different colours and there are such interesting pieces.”
Much like Bo & Luca’s gowns – these pieces are once-off treasures you won’t be able to find again.
They elaborate, “We’re seeing some trends with stacking bands too, where brides-to-be are playing around with different shapes of their wedding bands, which can elevate a simple solid chain to something quite beautiful and quite ethereal”
Timelines & Purchasing Process
When it comes to bridal we always advise on planning well in advance as luxury goods take time to create. While our gowns take four to six to create, Dear Rae advises ordering their pieces at least a month and a half in advance. Online shopping has increased substantially over the past year a challenge can be knowing your perfect sizing or fit. We’d recommend checking online sizing charts and chatting to an online stylist when in doubt!
Dear Rae sends out little paper belts to measure ring sizes but also encourages studio visits where they can measure your ring first.
The recently launched Dear Rae World website, which has created more availability for International customers to shop online, also has a new wish list option which can help you compare your favourite pieces or communicate what you like.
We love collaborating with like-minded brands and pairing beautiful pieces with our heirloom gowns. It seemed natural that we would pair with one of our favourite locally made jewellery brands, Dear Rae. Much like us, they create their one of a kind pieces through empowering and employing locals.
Feel free to email us at info@boandluca with any questions you might have or to book your very own appointment in studio now, where you’ll find some Dear Rae gems along with all of our unique accessories which you can also shop online.
Going beyond mere material, Bo & Luca translates beauty through craftsmanship and by guiding you through your wedding journey, till the end. We’re here to assist you in anyway we can, and to inspire and empower you through our designs and knowledge gained from years of being in the bridal industry. Head to our Instagram now and save your favourite posts for more inspiration!
