We had already chosen the venue, the flowers and probably discussed the seating plan far too many times.

The wedding rings were something we’d almost treated as another item on the list.

That changed after our first conversation with De Vere Diamonds.

We started talking about the fact that, once the wedding was over, almost everything we were spending money on would disappear. The flowers would be gone. The meal would be eaten. The music would stop.

Our rings would still be on our hands decades later.

So we decided to have them made for us.

Mine was quite simple. My wife wanted something with small natural diamonds that complemented her engagement ring without competing with it.

During the process we were introduced to the Legacy Vault.

Initially we thought it was mainly somewhere to keep the information about the jewellery. Then we realised we could make it something much more personal.

The night before our wedding, without seeing what the other had said, we each recorded a message.

We talked about how we’d met, what we loved about each other and what we hoped marriage would mean to us.

Those recordings now sit alongside the story and documentation of our rings.

We haven’t watched them together yet.

We’ve decided we’ll do that on our tenth wedding anniversary.

Perhaps one day our children will watch them too.

There is something rather wonderful about knowing that the rings on our hands carry not only the memory of our wedding day, but the voices of the two people we were just before we made those promises.